It was nighttime in the Everfree Forest, and in the Castle of the Two Sisters, called by some the ‘Castle of Shadows’, a black figure slowly emerged from a spectral layer on the ceiling, dropping down to the floor. The figure, Queen Chrysalis, snarled in frustration.
Wings flapping with a faint crunching sound, a small bat-like form bearing a smooth silver faceplate on the entire front of its body flew over.
“Looks like things didn’t go so well,” commented the repaired Kivatte-nise.
“Next time,” Chrysalis hissed.
“Or so you say,” Kivatte added. “How many times is it you’ve been defeated now, seven?”
Chrysalis turned with a glare, her entire eyes flashing to red. She growled in a male voice, “Four.” Chrysalis burst apart into a tornado of black grasshoppers, circling madly before condensing into a new shape: a black and blue bipedal grasshopper monster with red eyes. “And if you would like to feel the sting of death in equal measure,” Kougane continued, “then I will gladly oblige.”
“If you two haven’t killed each other again,” said a new voice as a trail of sand blew in through the window, “I come bearing a gift.”
Starlight awoke on instinct. It was still the middle of the night, but something was nagging at her, an eerie feeling that was familiar yet unplaceable.
She took a walk through the castle’s halls and found herself stopping at Spike’s room. Yes, definitely here. But why? She knocked softly, but nobody came. “Spike?” No response.
She eased the door ajar, but it pulled itself open with a gust, Starlight quickly noticing that the window was open. Odd, Spike never did that at night. She walked over to investigate, but stepped in sand. The eerie feeling grew. Please, no…
She looked down to see a trail of sand going from the window across to Spike’s bed. It was empty and the sheets were tossed back. She picked up a hooffull of the sand and watched as it sifted out, the memory of standing on that cloud surfacing. She realized what was so familiar.
“Emergency, Spike!” Twilight called as she raced into the room. “Starlight? Good, really bad news. I suddenly had this strange feeling that I was missing something important, so I checked the lab and Kivat is gone! The robot bat from last Nightmare Night? Someone must’ve just taken it! Well, I hadn’t checked since last week, so, I mean I was meaning to but—”
“Twilight…,” Starlight said. Her tone silenced Twilight immediately, who then noticed the empty bed. Starlight turned to her and dropped the rest of the sand from her hoof. Twilight gasped, easily recognizing it. “I-I think he’s back.”
Twilight walked over and looked out the window, faintly seeing a trail of sand leading away in the direction of the Everfree Forest.
Spike landed hard on the stone ground with a grunt. As his mind woke up and his eyes adjusted to the dark room, he followed a trail of sand on the floor to its source: a tall dark orange figure clad in shiny orange chest and limb plates, with a tall fanlike collar of alternating yellow and white spans behind an orange demon head, the familiar sight of the Sunburst Imagin.
“Ahh, you again!” Spike shouted, recoiling and crawling back, then pausing. “Wait, is this ‘again’? Didn’t you like, un-happen or something? I’m confused about the details of time stuff.”
“Those cast out of time will return when remembered,” the Imagin said slyly. “And what better place to remember me, than in a dream? Or, a nightmare.” He waved his hand up, Spike looking to find the entire ceiling covered in a pulsating spectral view of a starry sky of a particularly familiar shade of purple.
“What!? Th-that’s the Tantabus!” Spike let out. “It’s in the real world? How? That Wizard guy destroyed it!”
“Are you sensing a pattern yet?” the Imagin said. “Everyone you thought was defeated, wasn’t.”
“Not anymore,” said Kivatte, hovering into view. Despite his new silver faceplate, the yellow patterns on his wings were still scorched and peeling off from his first defeat. Held in his mouth was a clear whistle with a red-orange box with a creature head sticking out decorating the end. Spike backed up to the wall as Kivatte flapped over. “Now hold still this time…”
Amidst the silence of night in the forest, an echoing dragon’s roar resonated throughout the halls of the castle, a group of birds being startled out of a nearby tree.
Following a tracing spell highlighting the trail of sand, Twilight, Starlight, and the gang ran their way through the Everfree. It was late at night, but a kidnapped Spike was reason enough for the others to get up at a moment’s notice. Twilight was even wearing the golden armor costume she’d enchanted last Nightmare Night, knowing that they’d need something more than just ordinary magic if their hunch on Spike’s kidnapper was correct.
“Why didn’t I check on Spike when I first had that feeling?” Twilight accused herself, leading the group.
“I went there first, and even I was too late,” Starlight replied, almost keeping pace. “Small comfort, but still.”
“I should’ve still gone there.” Her mind running in overdrive to analyze the situation on the fly, Twilight began noticing several odd plants lining the route, such as spiky curled purple shoots, large pumpkin-shaped flower buds, and vines bearing red fruits with blue tendrils trailing below them.
Despite the new plants, something about the path they were taking was becoming increasingly familiar, and they quickly realized the only notable location they could be heading to.
As they reached the ravine in front of the Castle of the Two Sisters, they saw a purple light glowing from within several of the castle’s central building’s windows. Twilight teleported the group in front of the castle, only to find the ground trembling under their hooves. They braced, but it quieted down only seconds later as the light faded out. She and Starlight exchanged a glance.
Twilight cautiously went up to the large doors and knocked lightly. “Spike?”
Something big crashed out through the doors, knocking Twilight back; she teleported out of midair, popping back in to land at Starlight’s hooves. As she looked up, she saw a large purple dragon’s head with a long green crest snaking out of the doorway on a thick neck before lurching to a stop with a thud, being lodged tight. The dragon moaned, and with a growl, two large purple wings broke out of the sides of the castle, sending stone bricks flying from the walls, and four short and stocky legs burst from the corners, pushing and tearing the castle up off the ground. The Castle Doran raised its head and roared a screech into the night.
The ponies were silenced by shock. Staring up at the dragon’s face as it looked around curiously, Twilight managed to mutter a single word. “Spike…?” The others looked at her.
Hearing this, the Castle Doran turned its attention to the small creatures in front of it, awkwardly waddling over for a closer look, the castle swaying from side to side. Against a chorus of whispered warnings, Twilight walked up to it. Though bearing a pair of large dagger teeth on the sides of its lower jaw, its face looked peaceful. Familiar. “Spike,” she said, Doran snorting in reply. “It is you, isn’t it?”
“Twilight, look there!” came a shout from the others.
“Huh?” she said before immediately noticing. “What the—?”
Doran looked back to see streams of a purple starry ether draining upward out of the castle’s windows, pooling into a large flat cloud overhead. The edges pulsed and spread like an amoeba, but the leading edge formed into the rough silhouette of an alicorn’s head with a pair of ghastly holes for eyes and a jagged tear for a mouth silently howling at them.
“Impossible.”
“Isn’t that…?”
“The Tantabus,” Twilight hissed.
“I wasn’t expecting you to show up so soon!” called an excited voice from the castle. Everyone looked to see a small silver shape fly out of a window and hover with the sound of crunching wing flaps.
“Kivat!”
“It’s Kivatte now to you,” he called back, “and my new friends will make sure that you can’t interfere with my plans this time! Tantabus!” {If we met in a dream…}
The surface of the Tantabus rippled as its face melted back into it, a giant form dropping out through it. A black metal spike and an array of curved decorations all around a glowing red orb came first, followed by a body of black metal with glowing red glass patterns that widened as it came, long arms and a neck trailing out as an elaborate spread of wing-shaped decorations emerged, the inner ring of which resembled a set of flames. The red Sabbat dropped directly onto the Castle Doran, its spike stabbing through the roof and into the dual-throned room with a force that brought the dragon to the ground whining in pain.
“Spike!” Twilight shouted.
“Ha!” Kivatte cackled. “Who needs to steal souls when you can create reality!”
Vines began spreading from the base of the Sabbat, binding it further into the castle. They snaked and intertwined across the walls, spreading up Doran’s wings and growing them out much larger and sharper-tipped, and creeping up its neck, snaring its head, forcing its gaze into a squint as its eyes covered over with a white glow and its upper and lower fangs grew longer. Its shrill cries of pain warped into deep and echoing howls of rage as the vine meshing ensnared its entire body.
Atop the Castle Doran, the Sabbat stretched out its spindly, clawed arms and raised its head on its glowing red neck, attached to the center of its body and with a metal spinal column and ribs running down it. A pair of dull golden winglike casings on its head spread aside to reveal a skull face with a ring of four glowing eyes, and it gave a screech that sounded like bending and scraping metal to join the corrupted Doran’s.
“Um, guys, ‘five-story chandelier with claws’,” Pinkie pointed out as the group gazed on. “That sound familiar to anypony else?”
“That monster we thought Kivat was just tryin’ to scare us with?” Applejack replied.
Rainbow continued, “And next he said that it…get out of here!”
The red flame decorations on top of the Sabbat glowed before shooting a barrage of fireballs winding down at the ponies, but before they could hit, Twilight raised her horn and teleported the group back into Ponyville just outside her castle. Panting for breath, she looked back out at the forest, seeing the edge of the Tantabus beginning to creep out over top of the trees and reach towards the town.
Kivatte smirked at the smoldering ground in front of him and flew back into the castle. With a growl, Doran spread its mighty wings, howling as it pushed off and took to the sky with a single flap despite its size and the Sabbat’s added weight.
From her post in Canterlot upon the palace’s balcony, a sudden disturbing sensation brought Luna out of her dreamwalking trance. Turning to the southwest, she saw in horror the shadow cast by a being all too familiar bleeding out across the sky from the Everfree. “No…,” she whispered.
In a flash of blue light, she brought herself into the castle of Princess Twilight, ignoring her surprise at finding her and her friends already gathered and in the middle of some discussion.
“Twilight Sparkle!” she announced in desperation, raising her hoof at Twilight. “The Tantabus is—”
“Isn’t the only thing we have to worry about this time,” Twilight cut her off, hurrying out to the balcony and indicating the telescope attached to the railing.
Puzzled, Luna walked out to look through it. It was already focused on the Sabbat-Doran hybrid flying under the spreading Tantabus. “What in my or my sister’s name is that?”
“It’s a bit of a long story that has little time to be explain—,” Twilight tried answering, but a burst of light accompanied the Mirror Portal in the room behind them whirring to life, everyone turning as a yellow unicorn leapt out. “Sunset?”
“Stop whatever you’re doing, Twilight,” Sunset said hastily, running over to her, “you’ve got a serious problem on your hooves.”
“Oh, what now?” Rainbow groaned.
“A time monster!?” Luna exclaimed during the explanation.
“We thought it was dealt with,” Starlight continued, “so we didn’t bother telling anyone.”
“So,” Twilight said while speedily pacing around the room, “the Imagin’s back, the Tantabus returned, Kivat’s working again, the chandelier monster was real, and Spike is now evil and flying a castle at us. What’s your good news, Sunset?”
“Someone recorded my battle with Kougane,” Sunset reported, “and I just noticed that a few of his black grasshoppers slipped through the portal right before we beat him.”
“This day just keeps getting better,” Twilight sighed. “Anything else?”
“You had to ask?” Rainbow said from the window, pointing at the sky. “Look!”
Everyone came out to see the Moon, now with black tendrils wrapped around it like a spider web from its center. It was slowly growing larger in the sky. Luna raised her glowing horn to it, but it continued its approach.
“I do not understand,” Luna said. “Something is blocking my ability to command its movement.”
“No time to worry about what’s goin’ wrong anymore,” Applejack spoke up, “what’re we doin’ to stop it?”
“There’s no time left for strategies,” Starlight said. “I say we take this stuff head-on. Somehow.”
“Um, actually,” Fluttershy said, “if the Tantabus is already coming, then…”
* * *
The band of defenders lined up at the edge of Ponyville: Twilight, Rainbow, Sunset, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, Starlight, and Luna. Twilight was still in her Royal Guard costume, but they weren’t showing off their tricks just yet. The Sabbat-Doran flew up and stopped overhead as the Tantabus blanketing the sky behind it like an approaching storm front began overtaking the starry night. The air was already beginning to warp, and the familiar feeling of a dream settled around them. A window or two in the town had opened to investigate the gut feelings of a bad moon rising, others soon joining.
Kivatte, a yellow ball of light, and a stream of black grasshoppers flew down from the Castle Doran’s windows, the yellow ball bursting into a sandy image that solidified into the Sunburst Imagin and the grasshoppers merging together into the Grasshopper Monster, standing against the line of heroes. The Grasshopper glared at Sunset and stepped forward.
“Look at what you’ve done to me,” Kougane growled. He held up a cracked black Lockseed with pink markings. Sunset tensed for action, but noticed trails of black dust falling from it. “This world cannot even sustain a rotten Golden Fruit!” he hissed as he crushed it in his grasp, the Lockseed bursting into black sand. “This world shall accept the Golden Fruit,” he said as he opened his palm again, the last of the sand draining, “but I must first make it a world that will.”
The monster threw its arms forward and a group of black grasshoppers flew out of its body. They erupted into bursts of green flames that faded to reveal a small army of changelings, the front several each wearing a different color of iridescent battle armor plating, complete with helmets bearing mandible decorations.
“Those are like the guys from my…,” Rainbow started. “Oh wait, duh, Tantabus. So it was just pieces of him in disguise back then? Even better.”
The Tantabus had now encapsulated the entire night sky with its own starry image, only the form of the approaching Moon still faintly visible through it. It was time.
Then a breeze picked up from off to the side, gently, but somehow pulling everyone’s attention. Out of the fog and the darkness, a walking figure faded into view: a magenta pony with a yellow, pink, and purple mane and a pale blue tail, a yellow dragonfly buzzing around above her.
“Oh?” Kivatte mused. “And who are you?”
“Hey,” Rainbow said, “you’re the one from the end of my dream.”
“I am a story that moves like the wind,” Storybelle spoke. “I am here because of the one story that should not be.”
She turned to look at the empty space beside the gathered villains. As if in response, a pair of wide arcs drew themselves in the air in the shape of an oval, closing in and passing each other to create a circle with a wisp between them, looking like an opening eye. A small eye-shaped object with a black optic nerve hook at the back floated out, and in a cloud of purple smoke was replaced by a black figure wearing a belt with an eye on it and a white coat with red and green stripes on different sides, a large candy cane stuck on each shoulder of the opposite stripe color, and a smooth black face with flame wisp blue eyes and red, green, and white striped boater hat.
“Sorry if I intruded on continuity that wasn’t my own,” the Candy Cane Ganma said, hands together as if to ask forgiveness, “but perfection can’t be limited to only two worlds, now can it? And after hearing about some big eye on the moon from the bat, I just couldn’t resist!”
“Not your continuity?” asked Starlight. “What does that mean?”
“It means that he originated in a story that was not meant to mesh with those you have been living in,” Storybelle said.
“Huh?” Starlight replied.
“A story of the world of another Ponyville,” Storybelle added.
“You mean like the world in my dream?” Rainbow asked.
“A similar idea, but not the same one, yes,” Storybelle continued, getting a bit tired of this.
“It was a Christmas miracle!” the Ganma exclaimed. “Who could fully predict the result of a Santa Claus Omega Drive? I thought it was over for me and time to go back home, but then I awoke and found myself in this world as if it was something that just always happens, and an easily repaired little robot bat started outlining quite the vision.”
“The Ganma’s ghostly powers resurrected the Tantabus into the real world,” Storybelle continued, “letting the Imagin be recalled from the lost timeline and otherwise putting these events into motion. As the Keeper of Stories, it is my duty to rectify this. Now please,” she said, turning to the Ganma and pointing out her right hoof as the ring sitting atop her wrist strap split open, “return that story to the author. Gossamer!”
The yellow dragonfly that accompanied her circled once and flew out beside her hoof, revealing itself to be mechanical with a black- and yellow-banded tail and twin silver laser barrels for eyes. The Zecter backflipped and clicked its tail into the ring on her wrist strap, the ring snapping shut with its wings sticking straight out to the sides.
“Now don’t think you’ll be alone in this,” Applejack said, stepping up.
“Not to worry,” Storybelle replied, “I’ve monitored your stories and know how you work. Please handle the others, you can just pretend that we’re not here.” She stared down the Ganma, who feigned a frightened recoil.
“You guys shouldn’t have brought the Tantabus here,” Starlight said. “Alright, everypony, dream on!”
“From the power I made for myself!” Twilight called. She pressed the gold disk on the band on her left wrist, and with whirs and beeps, the golden images of armor plates unfolded down her arms and legs from her costume, also extending onto the backs of her wings, up her ears and horn, and over her muzzle, in a flash sending out a burst of heat as they solidified, a shining sun insignia on her chest.
“From the power I had in a dream!” Rainbow shouted. She pointed a hoof to the sky, and down from the Tantabus flew the small blue Pegasus Zecter, latching onto the wrist brace she was suddenly wearing on her left arm. Its wings folded back and she immediately pushed them upright.
HENSHIN
A hexagonal wavefront swept from the brace down over her, depositing a slim metallic light blue and dull silver metal suit resembling her, complete with sculpted rainbow mane and tail. A pair of metal wings covered over her own, and her large magenta eye covers flashed.
CHANGE PEGASUS
“From the power borrowed from my friends!” Sunset called, holding out human Twilight’s purple pendant device. She hit it with a beam of magic and it morphed into a long silver Lockseed bearing a circular array of cutie marks and the code L.S.-FiM, a black device with an open orangish yellow Lockseed sitting on it appearing around her neck with a flash. She stuck the silver Lockseed into the side of the device and twisted it, flipping it open.
Lock Open! Friendship Arms
Seven circular zippers opened in the sky, each slowly dropping a large metal object shaped like one of the Mane 6’s cutie marks as Sunset’s dropped from the center of the ring. It lowered onto her head and began unfolding as the others spun around her before stopping and shooting in.
Dai Dai Dai Dai, Dai Magic!
In a bright flash, scraps of red and yellow armor flew away to reveal her standing (still as a pony) in a gleaming silver armor suit with the seven cutie marks decorating her chest, a semicircular visor with the rainbow of each of their colors, and a golden sun crest on her forehead, a black cape with a red inside flapping in the wind that was only around her.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Rarity asked Fluttershy. “It was your idea, but…”
“I am if you are,” Fluttershy replied. “From the power that was forced upon us!” Branching black veins spread up her face before she was covered in a silvery coating that morphed her form into a more muscled figure, shattering away to reveal the armor of Kivashy: a black suit with a dull yellow chest and a silver casing on her back and the backs of her large yellow bat wings, a jagged dull pink mane and tail, and a yellow helmet with wing-like ears sticking out and empty dark gray eye covers shaped like folded bat wings. Unlike the last time she took this form, she wore no collar.
She held up her right hoof, and a horseshoe grasper flipped up from it. Rarity tilted her head back and the mermaid costume from Nightmare Night appeared on her before she was covered in an eerie green glow. She lifted up as a pair of chains flew in and collapsed her form down to that of a green and gold gun. The Basshaa Magnum spun into Kivashy’s grasp, chains wrapping up her arm and shattering away to give it green armor with a flared fin shoulder pad, more chains covering her chest before green and silver armor plates clamped in and shattered them away with a burst of water. Kivashy’s eye covers filled up with green water and flashed.
“Looks like we’re gonna just be us,” Applejack said to the rest of the group standing untransformed at the end of the line.
“Speak for yourself,” Pinkie shot back. “This idea…‘came to me in a dream’.” She took out a tuning fork and tapped it on her hoof, raising it and the visible shockwaves it spread to her forehead. Under the waves, a silver face crest appeared, and her body began glowing dark pink, bright pink flames bursting out as her moaning grew louder. With a shout of, “Tah!” she threw her arm out to the side, and the flames burst away with a drumbeat. The pony-Oni warrior ‘Pinki’ stood clad in a shiny pink suit with silver shoulder straps and dark pink gloves, thin dark pink branches reaching in from the sides of a black face cover to outline her eyes, and a pair of short silver spikes on her head resembling her ears.
Applejack rolled her eyes, taking out a lasso and spinning it high as Starlight lit up her horn.
“Now that we’re all ready…,” the Ganma teased, “let the wild rumpus start!” {The stage is set.}
The armored changelings hissed and crouched before shooting forward and vanishing from sight. Rainbow quickly pulled her Zecter’s wings down to the sides. “This’ll be fun.”
CLOCK UP
The world around her all but froze, the changelings returning to view rushing the group. Rainbow jumped into the line, twisting and kicking an orange-armored changeling back before grabbing the leader with red armor, attempting to pull and toss it aside, but it spun and rammed her off. Flaring her wings, she righted in midair and landed softly on her hooves. So they weren’t all pushovers like last time. Rainbow stomped down and prepared for a tense fight.
As this was happening, Sunset clicked the silver Lockseed forward several times, zippers opening in the air behind her as armaments shaped like cutie marks flew out, Sunset and Twilight mark shields spinning like saw blades at the monsters. The Grasshopper burst apart into a swarm again and flew around all of the incoming weapons, shooting over and forming a tornado around Sunset. Surprised, she found herself being lifted off the ground and pulled away into Ponyville.
As Luna flew up to face the sky-covering Tantabus with her horn glowing, the Candy Cane Ganma danced its way towards Storybelle, who took aim. Then a barrage of water shots hit the Ganma from the side, sending it stumbling off. Fluttershy stood holding the Basshaa Magnum.
“Thought I said I had this one alone,” Storybelle said, walking up to her.
“Oh, nonsense,” Rarity’s voice replied, the Magnum’s fronds spinning.
“Fair enough,” said Storybelle. She and Fluttershy raised their weapons at the Ganma and began firing.
The crowd of unarmored changelings approached, but Pinki pulled out a pair of drumsticks from her back, the ends of which were clear pink demon face clubs with little horns on top. She spun them around her hooves once and tapped them together before charging into the crowd.
Twilight had been staring at the Sabbat-Doran, which now started flying over them into town. Spreading her wings, she shot up in front of it. “If you can hear me, this is for you, Spike!” she shouted. The blank-eyed Doran only snarled and spat a fireball at her.
Below, Kivatte grunted. “Trying to mess with my vessel for souls, are you?” he said, starting to flap up to them, but a lasso snared around his left wing and jerked him to a stop.
“No one’s gonna think you’re harmless enough to leave alone this time!” Applejack called, holding the other end of the rope.
Having stood back as the others paired off, the orange Imagin stared down Starlight, now standing alone. She saw as it rushed at her, sending a charged beam of magic at it, but it was upon her before she realized and pushed an orange-glowing palm right through the beam and grabbed her horn. In a flash, her attack stopped and it threw her back. She went to fire another beam, but her horn only fizzled.
“What?” she gasped, trying to light up her horn again to no avail. “H-how…?”
The Imagin crossed its arms. “Don’t tell me you convinced yourself that your power was as much as I let you think before.”
Starlight tried to respond with an emphatic, “Yes, it is!”, but all she could do was gape silently as she failed to force more magic out. This didn’t make sense, how was this happening? She should be stronger than this, she had to be. Why wasn’t she?
“Nothing?” the Imagin taunted. “What’s the matter? Still remember when I killed you as a child? Or…is it scarier that you saw it but don’t remember?”
The image of the smoke clearing after its attack back in the past flashed in her mind. Starlight heard her heart pounding in her ears. And then it stopped. Silence. She hastily felt for a heartbeat but found none. It was just like that time…
Backing away in fear, her hoof stepped on something that slid away, and she fell to the ground, accidentally kicking the object into view. It was that clear-faced black case object she’d seen him use back then to…
“You were nothing without me,” the Imagin continued, drawing nearer, “and you still are.”
Starlight grabbed the Rider Pass as she stood, a humming sound accompanying a circular glow depositing the unhooked silver strap and buckle of Kamen Rider Den-O onto her neck. The Imagin gasped in surprise, and with a smirk, she clicked the right side strap on and swiped the Pass across the T-junction emblem, which flashed white.
“I am not…powerless…,” Starlight said less impressively than she’d hoped as she held her head. An array of glowing white debris flew from the buckle before accumulating onto her and becoming the sparsely silver-plated black suit of Plat Form. No other armor came. She swayed a bit, a feeling of lightheadedness suddenly creeping upon her. She heard the Imagin begin to chuckle.
“You are no longer my contract holder,” it whispered to her. “I don’t need to worry about not hurting you anymore…”
High above, Luna was finding that her strongest magic blast wasn’t even fazing the layer the Tantabus had formed in the sky with itself. In fact, judging by how its surface was undulating, it appeared to be having its version of a laugh at her futile attack. With a helpless look down, however, she saw Starlight transform but begin to sway. She knew what she had to do.
“You may have grown stronger than what I can face alone,” she said to the Tantabus, “but mark my words that we will defeat you, all of you, because together, we are never alone.”
Luna dove back down to the fight, fading herself into a spectral image to try something she never thought would be possible or necessary. Starlight looked up to see Luna’s spectral form diving into her and vanishing. A second later, the buckle flashed dark blue and a ball of light flew out. It traced a circular path and created six armor plates that orbited Starlight before spinning and flying in, the large side pair hooking over her shoulders and forming a V-shaped dark blue chest plate, the small front pair latching together into a black bib before the front pattern spun and rearranged itself into a white crescent moon, attaching overtop of the buckle and in the space of the chest plate, and the large back pair folding open and attaching to her back with a pair of dark blue winglike flaps sticking out.
The ball flew up to the back of her head and formed a disk that slid over along the train track on her helmet; the inside of the disk had the form of a spectral blue bat with a gold crescent for ears and whose wing and tail edges formed a golden ring. Its tail folded down as a mouth cover as its wings spread out, their lower halves folding up into a pair of half-crescent eye covers that slid in and latched into position to form a crescent moon. Luna stood controlling Moon Form with Starlight contained inside the armor.
The Imagin took a step back at this new development, but summoned an orange glow onto its forearms and prepared to fight.
Kivatte struggled against the lasso on his wing.
“Change it, perfect it, rule it, infect it,” Applejack listed. “It seems like you each want to do something different with this world, so whose plan do you go with?”
“It depends,” Kivatte chuckled. “Which of us can you beat first?”
He spun around and slipped his wing out of the rope, turning back and biting it with a shout of, “Gabu!” A strange warped tune looped as glowing purple cracks ran down the rope from where he bit it, Applejack letting go before they reached her.
The rope struggled and flailed on its own, a hissing sound emanating as it began to expand much thicker and grow to dozens of feet in length.
“But I think we’ll be going with mine!” Kivatte shouted as the outer layer of rope burst off from the lasso’s loop and length to reveal the form of a giant silvery white serpent with a circular crest on its head, a red glass disk suspended within the crest. Six feathered wings of blue glass spread from the sides of its neck like a cobra’s hood, and the Kukulkan screeched before lunging at Applejack.
Stuck in shock, she tried to jump away, but the Kukulkan snaked around her, snaring her in its coils. It turned its fangs to her with a hiss, but a pink fireball suddenly hit it in the face. It and Applejack looked to see Pinki holding a pink club at it. Behind her, a group of changelings swayed as images of pink disks with Pinkie’s cutie mark spun in front of them, each exploding into green flames in turn.
Unnoticed, Kivatte glided away to investigate another part of the battle.
The tornado of black grasshoppers deposited Sunset into the middle of a street somewhere in Ponyville before recombining. In the house next to them, somepony looked out their window.
“What’s the matter?” Sunset said, brushing herself off. “Didn’t want the others to see you get beaten? Again?”
Kougane did not humor her. “I desired for you to bear witness to the—”
“Y’know,” Sunset cut in, “everyone always uses that phrase but there are never any bears around, what gives?”
The Grasshopper raised its hand, and a pair of leafy vines shot in from the sides and grabbed Sunset’s arms, pulling them aside to keep her from her Lockseed. She struggled to no avail, they weren’t listening to the Forest-controlling power she had last time. Two houses down, somepony peeked out their door.
“This world will not currently accept to the Golden Fruit,” Kougane accounted, “but I have toppled those who have claimed unity before. I only require the proper scenario…the proper motivators. When their minds are at peace, your pony brethren do not respond to my influence, but what if I were to apply a certain pressure? Such as…the force of a living nightmare.”
As somepony took a step outside, vines suddenly snaked around the house behind them, spreading out to ensnare the rest of the block. Ponies screamed from being trapped inside, while those outside found strange plants growing. Sunset strained against the vines holding her, but could only watch as Inves began creeping out from the Forest that was now growing in Ponyville.
The Grasshopper sent out a small swarm of Evil Seeds, each one landing on a frightened pony. The monster stood tall and basked in the power its drones were sending it from their hosts.
The Ganma swung thick candy cane staffs to block the dual barrages trying to reach it. “I suppose that you might be expecting me to be spouting some exposition right about here,” he said while bobbing and weaving.
“We’re trying to defeat you right now,” Storybelle replied, “please let us focus.”
As the Ganma spun to avoid the next spray, Fluttershy noticed that Storybelle was aiming more than she was shooting, constantly attempting to train her Zecter on the Ganma as he bounced and sidestepped around, as if there was a specific point she was trying to hit.
Fluttershy fired another series of water shots from the Magnum, but this time the Ganma raised his left hand at the shots and the green-striped candy cane on his left shoulder sprayed a blast of “cool” mint that froze them solid. They kept flying, however, and pelted him hard with spits of sparks flying off, knocking him over.
“Oww,” the Ganma moaned. “Okay. Bad idea.”
He jumped back up, but Storybelle took her chance with his distraction. She flipped her Zecter’s wings up and folded them back, aiming; the top edge of the folded wings had half-funnels that now formed a square sight with a screen that displayed a targeting system dial in on the Ganma’s eye-bearing belt. She reached for the handle at the end of Gossamer’s tail.
Before she could, however, the Ganma threw out his right hand, the red-striped candy cane on his right shoulder firing an array of red “spear”mint spears at her. She tried to duck, but Fluttershy jumped in front of her, her silver-backed wings blocking the attack with resounding clangs. Kivashy spread her wings aside and returned fire.
Twilight flew in a wide arc around the Sabbat-Doran, barely staying ahead of the barrage of fireballs both monsters were shooting at her. The Sabbat fired a cluster of curving fireballs from its flame wing decorations to pass her on all sides at once, but she conjured a dome shield in front of her and rammed through one to escape the trap, the resulting burst still shaking her. She couldn’t stay on the defensive forever.
She flew in and took a tighter pass around Doran to the right, the dragon trying too late to bite at her, and circled around for a surprise attack, but the Sabbat swiped its hooked claws back at her, its skeletal hand being over twice her size and having three long fingers with a thumb on each side. She spun around it, flying out past Doran’s head a ways before stopping and diving back at them.
The Sabbat reached at her with its left arm, but she tucked in her wings and slipped right through its fingers, shooting a magic beam to scour its arm as she flew up its length, the Sabbat screeching. She quickly snuck around behind it for another pass, noticing the shining crystal orb floating in an open space near its base. Having chosen her weak point, she flew in and shot a slicing beam at it, but Doran began lurching from side to side. Keeping the beam going, Twilight tried to fly in a close ring around it to cut the Sabbat off of the castle, managing to vaguely scrape the edges of the moving target, but Doran used a powerful flap of its wings to surge a short distance ahead, twisting back at Twilight with a roar and spitting a volley of large fireballs.
The Imagin sent an orange energy blast from its palm, but Luna pulled Starlight’s arm up to trace a projected crescent moon that reflected the attack at the Imagin’s feet.
“Stand strong, Starlight,” Luna’s voice said in Starlight’s mind, but she could feel that she was the only one fighting. “Starlight, you are only borderline conscious,” she said in concern after a quick check of her host, “what’s wrong?”
“I…,” Starlight barely managed to respond, “…head…heart…”
“Heart?” Luna repeated, checking again. “Starlight, your heart isn’t—!“
But Starlight’s focus was already waning as her vision blurred. Luna could sense that the dream reality around them was to blame, but couldn’t figure the trigger.
The Imagin ran up and grabbed at them with glowing palms, but Luna traced another crescent for it to catch instead, swiping back across and sending it slicing through them. The Imagin staggered back with a glowing gash, but it flexed and the gash faded.
“Starlight, what caused this?” Luna hastily asked. “There is not much time!”
“C…can’t…,” Starlight muttered. The events around her were drifting farther away, and she was powerless to reach for them.
“It seems,” the Imagin cut in, “that the little miss has realized she has no power in life. That everything she thought she’d accomplished was only because of my assistance.”
“That is not true!” Luna shouted mentally.
“The Aura Armor of Den-O reflects the user’s inner self,” explained the Imagin. “If you cannot call your own armor, then what does that say about you?”
“If she had no confidence,” Luna said, “then it was only because you tricked her out of it!”
Luna jumped up on her flared armor wings. Her spectral blue bat faceplate began drawing in energy and built up a bright light blue glow, unfolding back into its original disk shape. She threw her head forward and unleashed a massive blue beam from the disk, but the Imagin simply held up its hands and caught the beam. As its palms gained a light blue glow, the beam began absorbing into them, and Luna could feel the pull on the beam beginning to drain power from her. She cut the attack short in shock as her faceplate folded back into a mask, the Imagin chuckling.
“It looks like you didn’t know what you were up against,” it said. It raised its glowing hands and released a pulse back at her.
Kougane cackled as Sunset continued struggling against the vines, the ponies around them scrambling as their houses unfolded into the branches of growing trees with blurry soap bubble outlines, leaving no defense against the roaming Inves.
“You may have heard,” Kougane said, “of the path that fear sets one on. Fear leads to anger, anger to hate, and from that, the Golden Fruit sprouts with the promise to reshape the world to its holder’s vision. I wonder who will rise to claim it? Will it be you? Or perhaps, will it be—” sching!
The Grasshopper recoiled and shrieked as a record embedded itself into its chest. It looked to see Vinyl Scratch holding a stack of them, ready to ninja-star another at it. Behind her stood Lyra with her lyre strung with a golden energy arrow and Bon Bon with a grappling hook, calling others to gather between them.
“What are they doing?” growled Kougane as his swarm body pushed the record back out. “Is there no length that—grrah!” The Grasshopper suddenly clenched its hands as the sting of poison flowed through it.
Sunset was confused for a second, but when Octavia came up and sliced the vines away with her cello bow, Sunset saw a black grasshopper sitting on her shoulder. It was twitching as smoke drifted from it.
“Of course,” Sunset said. “If this fruit of yours is nourished by hate, then what does love do to it?” She clicked the silver Lockseed several times, zippers opening and cutie mark armaments dropping out to begin raining down blue diamond shards and rainbow lightning bolts on the Inves.
The Kukulkan hissed as it flared its wings at Pinki, shooting a barrage of blue fireballs from the red disk in its crest. Pinki crossed her drumstick clubs as steam vented off of her suit, her clubs blazing up with pink flames. She swung them and knocked the fireballs aside one by one, raising the clubs and hitting a fireball straight back into the Kukulkan, briefly stunning it.
“Nifty,” Applejack said, still wrapped up.
“I know, right?” Pinki replied. “Fighting like it’s a dream again is awesome! But how come you’re not powering up with anything? At least become Mistress Marevelous like last time.”
Applejack shook her head with a grin. “Now why would I come up with somethin’ fanciful when I can do everything I need to already?”
With a kick, she uncoiled the Kukulkan’s body and leapt out. It shook its head and hissed at her, floating up and striking with its jaws, but she dodged aside and it bit dirt. It snarled and gave chase on the wing, Applejack racing out ahead and leading it around before jumping into a large bush. The Kukulkan dove fangs-first into the bush, but retracted seconds later with a wooden chair propping its mouth open. It tried crunching it with a bite, but Applejack stepped out from behind the bush with a snake charmer’s flute and began to play. The Kukulkan’s hissing subsided and it swayed back and forth.
“Now you’re infringing on my territory,” Pinki said. She turned to the monster and took out a pair of cymbals. “Prepare to face the music of the Oni of ten instruments! Ongeki Hyō! Keichō Fubaku!” {Sound Attack Beat, Gentle Explosion} She crashed the cymbals together and sent a concentrated golden shockwave of pure sound slicing at the Kukulkan, then another, and another. Hit again and again by the shrill attacks, it tried sending a fireball in retaliation but missed terribly, instead deciding to turn and take another bite at Applejack. Unfortunately, Applejack was partly distracted by Pinki’s attack and didn’t notice the Kukulkan until—
At Clock Up speeds faster than sight, Rainbow tumbled back from a hit by an orange-armored changeling, a yellow-armored one also closing fast. Her Zecter’s wings were pushed around forward with magenta electricity jumping between them. She took a glance around at the situation sitting all but frozen around her and made her strategy. “Rider Kick!” she shouted, pulling the Zecter’s wings back out to the sides.
RIDER KICK
The charged tachyon energy surged from the Zecter’s wings out to her own as Orange rushed her. She let it tackle her, falling back out of its way and grabbing its arm, kicking it in the gut to launch it tumbling right at the Kukulkan. The magenta electricity flowed down into her back right hoof a second later, and she twisted back up to her hooves, in the same motion kicking out at Yellow as it lunged, catching it across the face with the tachyon hoof sweep. As Yellow folded to the ground, Orange rammed into the Kukulkan’s open jaws, impaling itself on the monster’s teeth and bursting into a cloud of orange flames. Magenta electricity jumped across Yellow before it exploded into yellow flames, a black grasshopper getting thrown from each fire and exploding again.
As Rainbow tried taking a breath, a fiery streak slammed into her with a blast of sparks, sending her to the ground. Smoke trailed off of the red-armored changeling as it closed in, but in a flash from the sky, a new thin Zecter with a cloud body and rainbow lightning bolts like insect wings streaked down to Rainbow.
Meanwhile, Applejack was partly distracted by Pinki’s attack and didn’t notice the Kukulkan until a sudden burst of orange flame in its mouth made it recoil with a whine.
Kivashy took to the sky and vanished into the darkness. The Ganma turned left and right, but Kivashy swooped by on his blindside and whipped him with her tail, disappearing only to swoop by again for another hit. The Ganma staggered before a line of Basshaa shots pelted him.
“Keep it up,” Storybelle muttered, watching the scene and aiming at the distracted Ganma’s belt again. “Just a bit more…”
Panting and gasping, the Ganma turned to the next sound he heard with both candy cane staffs raised only to be looking down the barrel of the Basshaa Magnum. He quickly crossed the staffs in defense, but Kivashy shot them repeatedly point-blank, the condensed water bullets quickly cracking and shattering them. Then she kept firing, the sheer force of the barrage shoving the Ganma back as she kept the gap closed by gliding forward on silent wings. A frustrated Storybelle stopped trying to aim at the moving target. Kivashy spun and wrapped her tail around the Ganma’s feet, pulling and sending it over backwards before aiming the Magnum again.
“Fluttershy dear,” came Rarity’s voice from the gun, “this is going a bit far. Perhaps you could tone it down just a bit?”
“What was I…?” Fluttershy stuttered, her hoof starting to tremble. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what—”
“Au contraire,” said a new voice from above, “she has nothing to be ashamed of.”
“K-Kivat!” Fluttershy let out.
“That even on her own,” Kivatte continued, dropping down to Kivashy’s eye level, “when in full control of the form her powers take…”
“N-no, I…,” Fluttershy said weakly, “it was the instinct from the first time, I don’t know how it still…”
Kivatte came closer, but Fluttershy couldn’t retreat, a will not her own locking her in place. “She soon begins to become the true, the original Kivashy.” Kivashy’s original collar started fading into view around her neck.
“Stop distracting her!” Rarity shouted.
“I am flattered…,” Kivatte said.
Meanwhile, the Ganma had tried sneaking away unnoticed. Storybelle took aim again, but hesitated, looking back at Kivatte. She had to fix the story as a whole by destroying the Ganma, but what of its minute events? The Gossamer Zecter tilted between the two before turning to Kivatte.
“Rider Shoot—,” she started to say, but instinct made her duck a sneak attack swipe by another candy cane staff. She dove away from the Ganma and quickly pulled the handle at the back of the Zecter, trying to take aim.
RIDER SHOOTING
An energy ball charged on the dual barrels and shot off. The Ganma tried defending with his staff, but the attack pushed it back and into the red-striped candy cane on his right shoulder as he tried ducking away, blasting them both apart.
Twilight dove this way and that to avoid Doran’s fireballs, but as she dodged one right into the path of another, she threw up a shield bubble. She was bounced off the fireball and thrown sideways at the wall of the castle, crashing through one of the windows and tumbling to the floor inside.
Now with a quiet moment, Twilight got up and saw in surprise that she was standing in the dual throne room of the castle. And it was covered with hanging and crossing vines.
“It’s still like the castle in here?” she pondered. “Then what about the giant dragon that’s supposed to be stuffed in here?” As she quickly dismissed this idea, she heard a slithering and sliding sound. She quickly lit up her horn and scanned for a threat, stopping in shock when she saw a cluster of vines rising up from the floor and weaving themselves together into the shape of a pony. Into the shape of her.
This new writhing pony construct opened its eyes of empty holes, a long and curved horn sprouting from its forehead. It smiled at her. “You,” it hissed. “You are strong. You are determined. Do you seek glory? Can you bear the burden?” Twilight backed away, but the vines along the floor shifted, dragging the form to follow her without its legs moving. “If fate itself were to call you to change the world,” it continued, “to dye it in your image, would you heed the call?” From the tip of its horn, a bud grew, the casing falling away to reveal a golden yellow fruit shining like a lantern. On sight, a desire suddenly appeared in Twilight’s mind that knew no equal in her life. She desired it. She required it. “Would you pluck the fruit of heaven, and gain all that you desire?” In her mind. Not her heart.
Looking around, Twilight followed the vines up to the spiked base of the Sabbat punctured through the ceiling, the floating orb slightly visible through the hole. “There’s only one thing I want right now,” she said, adding with conviction, “and you’re not offering it.” She pressed and twisted the disk on her wristband.
Ri-i-ise U-u-p
The sun emblem on her chest flashed and a projection flew out, spinning and growing as it swept back across her before erupting into the blazing image of the Sun, a layer of radiating heat building up on her golden horn cover. The vine pony spread its wings to cover the Golden Fruit, but when Twilight threw her head forward, a blast of searing heat washed over it, burning the vines and blasting the figure apart, its precious fruit bursting away.
Twilight spun around, the concentrated heat wave scorching and snapping all of the vines in the room, prompting screeches and howls from the monsters outside. She ran under the Sabbat’s base, crouching with wings spread before shooting herself up, a pulse of solar energy crashing into and through the spike.
Outside, the Sabbat screeched and swayed as a glowing pulse blasted through the floating orb at its base and into its main body. The orb exploded as smaller bursts of fire spouted from its sides, breaching farther and farther up its body before the pulse smashed out through the round stained glass roof between its wing decorations, leading an eruption of flames.
The Sabbat let out an echoing shriek as it fell sideways, the legs of its base snapping the vines that bound it as it tilted off of the Castle Doran’s roof, falling freely as it was too damaged to levitate itself. Doran roared and howled, the remaining vines ensnaring it drying up and falling off at once. Its wings shrank back down to normal, and as the vines fell from its neck and head, its fangs retracted and its eyes were allowed to un-squint and lost their white glow. Finally free, it gave a mighty bellow.
Twilight flew up beside it as the glow faded from her armor. Doran turned to her with the same gentle expression it had first had. Then it snarled, a series of lights inside the castle’s lower level sliding forward into its neck, and it spat a series of fireballs down past Twilight, the barrage hitting the falling Sabbat and destroying it.
Now seeing the Kukulkan, Applejack jumped back, and as it tried to strike again, an extending accordion looped around it and snared it in place. Applejack had thought she’s seen ridiculous costumes before, but nothing matched what she saw as the Pinki suit now had said accordion strapped to its back as well as a large tuba resting around it.
“Ongeki Sō!” Pinki shouted. “Hankyō Issen!” {Sound Attack Play, Reverberation Flash} She took in a deep breath before putting her smooth faceplate against the tuba’s mouthpiece (how?), and it emitted (seriously, how?) a crashing brass bass wave that swept over the trapped Kukulkan, shaking it to its core.
The accordion let go and retracted, the Kukulkan unable to do anything but float back down to the ground, swaying. Tossing the two instruments aside, Pinki grabbed the two disks bearing her cutie mark strapped to the sides of her belt and tossed them at the monster. Latching onto it, they spun and grew, Pinki pulling out her drumstick clubs again and racing up to them. She raised the clubs high and tapped them together.
“Ongeki Da! Hontōni Hayai Dageki no Kata!” {Sound Attack Stroke, Really Fast Hitting Style} She rapidly beat on the two large drum disks with each club, switching to both on one, then the other, then back to one each. Each beat sent a pure sound shockwave running along the Kukulkan, the snake monster hissing but unable to retaliate. Pinki hit both drums at once one, two, three times, raising the clubs for one final all-out—beat!
The final shockwaves swept along the Kukulkan, an echoing pulse growing louder as it gave a defeated whine. The Kukulkan’s body flashed white before bursting like a popped balloon into a cloud of smoke, stray scales raining down.
Pinki spun a club around her hoof and propped it up on her shoulder, but accidentally hit herself in the back of the head, immediately pretending she hadn’t.
Luna dropped back to avoid the Imagin’s attack, spinning her hooves to trace a full moon disk projection that deflected the pulse up into the sky. She dropped to the ground, struggling to stay standing with Starlight’s limp body.
“Starlight, I cannot win this battle without you!” she called.
“What…can…,” Starlight said weakly, her vision going black.
“Nothing,” said the Imagin. “Your fate is going off the rails and you are powerless to stop it.”
“You helped me and my sister see past our differences,” Luna said, “after using one of the single strongest moments of magic I have seen in my life, and with almost no effort.”
“No, ignore her.”
“The weakness you feel is an illusion, Starlight, you must break through it. You have more power than he wants you to know!”
“Shut up!”
“That…that’s right…,” Starlight said, her thoughts beginning to organize. “How could he…make me forget?” The Imagin was trying to catch her defeating herself through not trying. No. She wasn’t that weak or foolish anymore, she knew her power was real. And now she would use it. Had her heart stopped beating? Had her magic disappeared? Only in her mind. And no more. Her situation, her destiny, was hers to control.
With a thought, she dispelled the influence the dreamscape had burdened her with, her mind and vision clearing immediately. She stood tall, hearing her heartbeat return and feeling her magic surge back.
“I’ll take over for this one,” she told Luna.
“Why did you have to interfere,” the Imagin hissed. “This was not your fight.”
“We’re friends,” Starlight countered. “Each of our fights are all of our fights.” She whispered to Luna, “If we’re gonna beat this guy, we’ll have to use some time tricks. Follow my lead.” She pulled out the Rider Pass and swiped it over the moon emblem covering the buckle.
Full Charge
Starlight tossed the Pass aside, dark blue and violet electricity reaching from the emblem down to her back hooves. The Imagin prepared to counter this attack, too, but felt a sudden disturbance in time. It looked behind it to see the frozen faded image of itself with an explosion of sand coming from its chest a distance back. Surprised and confused, it turned back to find Starlight jumping up and a line of images running through the phases of the Moon appearing between them.
It charged up orange energy on its forearms and released a blast at her, but electricity surged around her hooves and she twisted into a kick, flying into the beam. Behind the Imagin, the image of itself had slowly begun to stumble in reverse, backing its way up to it. The Imagin tried pushing Starlight away, but as she passed through a moon phase, she pushed through slightly faster, then faster with the next, then the next; the image behind it was getting closer and closer.
As Starlight’s hoof reached the full moon at the end of the line, feet away from the Imagin, she called, “Time’s up!” With a final burst of speed, she forced through the energy beam as the Imagin’s image reached it and turned around into it, her kick hitting at the precise moment of overlap with an explosion. The Imagin was thrown stumbling away, retracing the path its image had taken, pockets of sand bursting out of it.
As a flurry of pink metal butterflies destroyed the final Inves, a red goat creature, Kougane howled in rage, the charred Evil Seed grasshoppers collapsing off of the ponies into black dust and smoke.
“Yyy-y-yyooouu-ou…,” he gurgled at Sunset, spitting foam.
“You’re a sick, twisted monster, Kougane,” she replied. “And I said my piece last time.” She reached to the knife on the right side of her collar and sliced it down over the Lockseeds three times.
Friendship Sparking
She jumped up for a kick, her back hooves flaring up with rainbow-colored fire. In defiance, Kougane burst apart into the swarm of Evil Seeds and encircled her in midair, the grasshoppers flying faster and faster to try and push her away or tear her apart or something, anything painful! But Sunset only smirked inside her helmet. The flames on her hoof surged across her body, rushing out in a blaze that scorched the entire swarm at once. On fire, all of the Seeds flew back to the town border, popping one by one.
CLOCK OVER
In a burst of rainbow energy, Rainbow Dash and the red-armored changeling slid past each other, slowing down to be visible again. Around them, changelings with pink and white armor also appeared, already stumbling and covered with rainbow gashes. Rainbow was in an upgraded form of her armor resembling her Rainbow Power form, the wings of her Zecter now extended into rainbow lightning bolts.
A tense second passed.
Red sneered and went to turn around, but opened up a rainbow gash across its side and hissed in pain. Red, Pink, and White all fell to the ground, rainbow electricity jumping between them as they each exploded into colored flames, Evil Seeds being flung out to themselves explode.
Rainbow stood the victor, raising a hoof to the sky like she had in her dream. An epic pose for a glorious moment. Then she dropped her hoof, panting. “You…,” she said to anyone listening, “have no idea how long that took for me at those speeds.”
“I’m not acting like Kivashy!” Fluttershy cried.
“The old instinct came from me,” Kivatte said, reaching a foot towards the bar he hangs from on the collar. “It’s not at play here. Reject it if you will, this is all you. And if this is what you want, then you can be just like me…”
“It’s not you, it’s the Tantabus!” Rarity said. “Listen, Fluttershy, you’re afraid of this happening, so it’s happening. When I’m dealing with impending deadlines, it can feel like I’m causing myself to be late. Just stop worrying and focus!”
The Basshaa Magnum flipped itself up and shot a blast of water into Kivashy’s face, knocking her away from Kivatte. Fluttershy shook her head, the collar vanishing again.
“Drat,” Kivatte whispered with a snap of his wing. He froze when he looked up.
“Kivat,” Fluttershy growled, raising the Magnum to him while peeking around the edge of her mane. “Don’t you dare say that we’re the same!” Kivatte quickly darted away.
“Well done,” Rarity said. “You are in control, right?”
“Not to worry,” Fluttershy said calmly, dropping back to the ground and flipping her mane aside.
“Good,” said Storybelle, walking over, “because the word count is starting to rack up.”
“Oh come on, even I didn’t go so far with the meta jokes!” called the Ganma, now missing his right shoulder candy cane.
“Aim for the belt,” Storybelle said, and Fluttershy nodded. The Ganma tried to quietly tiptoe away.
Fluttershy held the Magnum up sideways in front of her, then twisted it. A sharp humming accompanied the air around her becoming like red smoke that condensed in towards her, leaving the sky a gray tone with the tendril-covered Full Moon shining behind the Ganma. A flash of green spread from her hooves, covering the ground in a shallow layer of water. She looked skyward and threw her arm out sideways, slowly bringing it to point up as the fronds around the Magnum’s barrel spun, the water at her hooves beginning to funnel up around her. Storybelle let the Gossamer Zecter’s targeting system lock onto the Ganma’s belt as he looked at the water at his feet.
The Ganma slapped his hands together in eureka, hopping up and releasing a burst of cool mint from his left shoulder candy cane. The layer of water froze over, the ice spreading onto Fluttershy’s other hooves and even the surface of the column swirling around her. Unfazed she brought the Magnum down to aim at the Ganma, Storybelle pulling the handle at her Zecter’s tail.
RIDER SHOOTING
A ball of tachyon energy and a glowing ball of water built up on their guns, and they fired, Fluttershy’s shattering the ice-coated column as the two attacks flew through the air and circled each other. The Ganma tried backing away, but his feet slipped on the ice and he fell…and instead of hitting his belt, the attacks hit his chest. His black body exploded into an inferno, his white stripped coat rising up before exploding itself.
From the back of the explosion, his Eyecon flew out and clattered to the ground. It glowed purple for a second before rising, floating and swaying its way over to the tree Kivatte was hiding in.
“Mr. Kivat,” the Ganma’s voice muttered as sparks jumped across the Eyecon “I don’t feel so good…”
Kivatte looked across the battlefield to see the Imagin stumbling over, leaking sand from several places, and Kougane’s swarm crashing into the ground to reform the Grasshopper, sparks continuing to spit from it as its Evil Seeds kept popping. Kivatte grinned. “Then it’s time.”
As the ponies regrouped, Doran landing nearby, they assumed that the battle was drawing to a close and that victory was in sight. How wrong they were, as Kivatte flew up above the scene.
“Monsters, battered and breaking,” he called. The Grasshopper pushed itself up to look. “The time has come for my contingency. You have been defeated by your rival heroes, but there is one option left. Your last chance at revenge is to become the fuel needed to summon the mightiest, the unbeatable…the King of the Castle in the Demon World! You know what to do.” {Time is now.}
“Huh?” said Twilight.
“What does he mean by that?” Sunset asked.
“There can only be one thing…,” Storybelle muttered.
“Everyone else is worried, right?” asked Rainbow.
The Imagin stood and turned itself into a sandy figure. The Grasshopper dispersed into its swarm and flew into the sand, darting in and out across the entire body. Tendrils of the Tantabus snaked down from the sky and wrapped around the figure like a mummy. The Ganma’s Eyecon floated up and drifted back into its chest, eye facing out. Kivatte cackled as he flew up to it. “Enjoy my masterpiece!” he shouted at the ponies, diving back and attaching onto the shadowy sand form’s waist. “Henshin!”
A gold coating faded in over the figure, everyone stepping back as it began expanding, growing to easily twice its height, over ten feet tall. The coating molded itself before shattering away to reveal a towering black-suited figure with chains over an open set of teeth on its chest and goat horns sweeping back on its head, large yellow eyes flashing on.
“Behold what I could not accomplish before,” Kivatte announced, a new deeper voice blending in as he continued. “I am Arc. Now, the world shall belong to its new masters, the Legendorga!”
The tendril-covered Moon melded through the cover of the Tantabus, now far larger in the sky than ever before. From the center of the tendrils, a massive eye opened up and gazed upon the scene below.
“Hit first and hit hard!” Rainbow shouted, speeding over in a glowing streak. She slashed past Arc, but he didn’t flinch, simply reaching around faster than he had any right to move and grabbing her by the sculpted tail of her armor, tossing her back to the others.
“Ongeki Hyō! Keichō Fubaku!” Shrill slashes of golden sound sliced past him from Pinki’s cymbals. Unfazed, Arc walked over with quaking steps and brought his heel down, Pinki diving to the side as a geyser of dirt flew from the impact.
RIDER SHOOTING
Ri-i-ise U-u-p
Storybelle, Fluttershy, and Twilight charged their attacks again, firing an energy ball, a water sphere, and a heat beam. They hit Arc with an explosion, but he stepped through the smoke unscathed, and shot a blue pulse from his forehead, blasting the ground around the three.
Full Charge
RIDER KICK
Friendship Squash
Starlight, Rainbow, and Sunset flew in with a trio of energized kicks, but Arc swung his arm and brushed them all away at once, sending them tumbling back to the ground.
“Nuisance begone,” Arc commanded. He turned to the Moon, raising his arms. “I call upon the ultimate power of my race!”
The yellow Moon sank closer, Arc flexing and the chains on his chest shattering away, the unbridled mouth sucking in a funnel of cosmic blue energy. The massive eye lifted off the Moon and pulled the tendrils with it, Arc rising up to meet them. The eye dove into the mouth, tendrils wrapping around his back and extending as his ram horns grew longer. The tendrils looked like wrought iron fence bars, and loosely weaved themselves into a massive hollow pair of wings and a second hollow pair of arms as long as Arc, both mounted onto his shoulders. Strands of spectral purple reached down as the entire dome of the Tantabus condensed into the spaces inside these new appendages, though the dreamscape remained. The massive eye opened again on his chest, flashing like a prism, and Kivatte’s silver faceplate popped off, revealing his lightbulb eyes and other stray mechanical components. “Feel my pain!” he shouted in a broken voice. His ultimate transformation complete, Legend Arc floated before the ponies. Everyone was silent.
“We can—,” Twilight started to say, but Legend Arc swept one of his new arms across the area, sending a wave that crashed explosively into all of the fighters.
Fluttershy and Rarity fell to the ground, realizing a second later that they were no longer Kivashy. Nearby, Pinkie and Rainbow found their Rider powers were gone, but while Luna was separated from the Aura Armor, Starlight was still wearing Plat Form. Twilight and Sunset still had their armor, also, but Storybelle was nowhere in sight.
“What happened?” Applejack asked, running up.
“Arc now has the full power of the Tantabus,” Luna said. “It must have undone what we used its dreamscape powers for.”
With a screech, the Castle Doran flew right at Legend Arc. Legend Arc turned and grabbed the castle’s walls with its giant arms, lurching it to a stop, but Doran spat a series of fireballs point-blank at him. The flames soon faded away to no effect, and Legend Arc flared his wings, thick energy beams shooting from them into the castle, fires blasting out its remaining windows. Doran gave a pained wail as he threw it out over a line of trees.
“Spike!” Twilight shouted as Doran fell out of sight, hearing a massive splash a few seconds later.
“We can still fight him, Twilight,” Sunset said. “Our powers are real, they still work.”
“But to what end?” Twilight replied. “They did nothing to his weaker form.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” scoffed a voice that sounded like Luna’s but wasn’t quite. Everyone turned to Luna to see a sneer on her face. “The darkness is winning one way or another, so there are only two options.”
“Why are…what are you saying?” Twilight stammered.
“You can either stand and be destroyed,” Luna continued, “or…” A spectral black cloud wrapped around Luna, lifting her off the ground before bursting away to reveal—
“Nightmare Moon!” everyone said in shock and horror.
“Princess Luna, how could you?” Twilight called.
“My power was rooted in the Legendorga from the start,” Nightmare Moon said, looking to the Moon still floating directly overhead. “The least I could do is be helpful upon their triumph. Tantabus!” She turned to Legend Arc, the spectral clouds within its extra appendages rippling. “In my time, I’ve come across a rather valuable treasure. An artifact that can send the entire world into a state of deep sleep. How does that sound to you?”
The Tantabus flapped Legend Arc’s wings and drifted him over to her.
“To you,” Nightmare said, levitating a small object over, “I gift this. Let this be the beginning of the greatest chapter of the Legendorga.”
Legend Arc reached out to the object, a ring, with its giant arm, a needle-thin finger slipping it on. It brought the ring down to Kivatte, who opened what remained of his mouth wide, gleefully clamping a bite onto its orange gem. The ring’s magic surged as it announced its power:
Sleep, Please
For a second, nothing appeared to happen. Then Legend Arc slowly drifted down from the sky and collapsed flat, an odd echoing sound that vaguely resembled snoring emanating from his motionless form.
Luna lowered to the ground and reverted back to normal in a white glow, spitting out a set of fake sharp teeth. “Yes, it could put the entire world into a deep sleep. I forgot to say it had to be used by everyone in turn to do so, though.”
“Uh, what just happened?” Rainbow asked.
“Whoa, you mean that was all an act!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“But of course,” Luna replied. “At least some of you realized that, right?” She looked around the group of surprised faces. “Twilight?”
“I…,” Twilight said, “absolutely thought it was possible. Yeah, played right along for added effect, that’s totally it.” Luna rolled her eyes.
“It may be difficult to deal with the discontinuity point now,” Storybelle said, suddenly standing by the form of Legend Arc.
“Wherever did you disappear to?” Rarity asked her.
“I could only arrive freely through the dreamscape,” she explained, “so I was cast out when the Tantabus canceled its abilities for us. However, it was only a matter of arriving again.”
The ponies looked between each other.
“You’re really weird,” Pinkie said, “you know that?”
“And loving it,” Storybelle replied. “In any case, you happen to be in luck. The realm you call Tartarus rather conveniently nullifies any discontinuities or paradoxes within its gates, therefore locking Arc away in there will negate any potential future damage to events that the Ganma may pose.”
“That…sounds like a pretty convenient coincidence,” Starlight said.
“Oh, trust me, that’s nothing,” Storybelle said. “I once saw a story with a place outright called ‘the Forest of Coincidence’, it literally removed the entire middle of the journey with well-timed happenstance.”
“Riiiight,” Twilight said, hovering above the scene. “So, about Spike.” She looked over the trees at Doran, who had landed in the lake by town to douse the fires within its castle.
With the Tantabus’ influence still at play, Sunset reformed all of the houses that had been turned into trees and removed all traces of the Forest, Twilight scanning Ponyville for any remaining needed corrections as Luna pushed the Moon back out to its proper orbit. Storybelle left the rest to them and departed into the ether before the dreamscape was finally dissolved.
Legend Arc was placed in a deep level of Tartarus, the Sleep Ring propped in Kivatte’s mouth to keep him forever asleep.
After that, Doran flew back to the Everfree and set the castle back where it belonged. Inside the castle they found the Doran Morph whistle that Kivatte had first used, and with a bit of magic tinkering managed to reverse its effect as the morning sun rose. Upon exiting the castle at his regular size again, the first thing Spike did was run up and hug Twilight.
While they were gone, however…
Four colorful figures wandered one particular street of Ponyville, searching the ground. Well, three searched, the purple one skipped around and pretending to search whenever anyone looked.
The red one stood up and stretched his back with a groan. “Man, that Starlight is just as careless with tossing the Rider Pass as we are.”
