“Warning. Reading from chapter three, verse two. Barriers one through three of the collar of Index Librorum Prohibitorum destroyed. Penetration of all barriers confirmed. Preparing for regeneration… Failed. Self-regeneration of the collar impossible. Now prioritising interception of intruders to preserve the 103,000 volume library.”
With the kitten on her head making fearful mewling noises, Index’s body floated upright in the air like a puppet, dragged upwards by invisible strings.
Twilight had been focusing on Nightmare Moon. She had been focused on what was obviously the biggest threat, her mind frantically trying to figure out how she had moved so close without anyone noticing.
But no matter how hard her heart had been racing, no matter how rushed her thoughts, it meant nothing. Twilight had instantly frozen upon hearing Index speak.
“Index… Librorum… Prohibitorum…?”
The words tumbled out of her mouth in a breathless, fearful tone. Nightmare Moon, the foe she had been focused so much on, was completely ignored as Twilight slowly turned around.
“The Index Librorum Prohibitorum?!”
This was a world where anything with a soul could learn and use magic.
There were many people who could misuse such power. A fail-safe was needed. The solution: the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
Originally, that name had belonged to a list of books, each of which contained such dangerous lines of thinking that they sullied your soul if you read them. Later, that name had been given to a young girl who had done the impossible and memorised every page of these eldritch tomes.
Each of the 103,000 grimoires that made up the List of Prohibited Books was a magical artefact of such power that it could decide a war. By the time you had gathered all 103,000 of them together you were not talking so much about a set of tools as you were an apocalypse in the form of paper and ink.
Even a fully trained magician could not read an ORIGINAL-class grimoire without irreversibly damaging their minds, frequently to the point of death. In order to be useful to mortals, their purity had to be diluted, which caused much of the information contained within to be lost.
But say there was a girl who could read a grimoire without any risk. Not just any grimoires either; but those of the ORIGINAL class. Now say that this girl had a perfect memory – she only had to read them once, and the knowledge would be contained inside her forever.
If that had been all, then the owners of grimoires all over the world would have never let this girl anywhere near their precious books. They did not wish to become party to creating a new god.
But it was alright, Index’s superiors had reassured. In addition to her other traits, this girl was unable to use magic. No matter how much magical knowledge she accumulated, she wasn’t able to use any of it.
It was only this last fail-safe that had persuaded those owners all over the world to lend their texts to the creation of a human Index Librorum Prohibitorum. This master of magical knowledge would be able to unravel and counter any magic, an invaluable asset in a world where anything with a soul could learn and develop their own spells.
But, now that Twilight thought about it, wasn’t there a big problem with that story?
This was a world where anything with a soul could use magic.
So why couldn’t Index?
And what had she just mentioned about a collar being destroyed?
“Multiple threats detected. Reading from chapter five, verse one. Adjusting tactics to ensure the swiftest resolution to the conflict. Begin annihilation of targets in order of threat assessment.” Index’s eyes were definitely focused in one direction, but with the glowing red circles in her eyes Twilight couldn’t tell if she was looking at her or at someone else.
No way.
This can’t be real!
There was no reason to believe that this girl was the Index, right? Maybe she was just using the name to scare off her opponents?
The real Index couldn’t use magic. She knew every spell in the world, or she might as well have. Fighting someone who knew and could perform the perfect counter to your every move would not be a desperate struggle against a powerful foe.
It would be an ant picking a fight with an avalanche.
“That’s enough!”
Kuroko teleported down to stand with the rest of them, Rarity along for the ride.
“I don’t know what is going on here, but I must warn you that if you continue to escalate this situation further –”
Kuroko didn’t get to finish her warning, because the circles in Index’s eyes pulsed with red light. Just like what had happened to Touma just moments before, both girls were sent hurling through the air.
(Touma, having just gotten to his feet, dashed forward to catch them, but he just ended up cushioning their involuntary flight with his own body.)
The soulless creature wearing Index’s face glanced down at the teleporter. “Reading from chapter seven, verse five. Enemy can ignore the restrictions of space. Countering with St. George’s Holy Sanctuary.”
The magic circles left the confines of Index’s eyes, expanding in size until they floated in the air in front of her. Black lightning crackled between the red lines of the circles, which had grown to Index’s own height.
All around Index’s body, the world cracked open. Pure darkness seemed to seep out of the cracks, which radiated outward like fractures in broken glass.
Twilight tried in vain to swallow, her throat dry. Yeah, that’s the Index all right.
This is really, really bad!
“Such power…” Nightmare Moon said, something like greed in her voice. “Were you the one to restore the sun to the sky, girl?” Unknowingly, she asked the same question as her Shadowbolt had before.
Index’s eyes moved to face Nightmare Moon, the circles before them perfectly mimicking the movement. “Assessment of the battlefield completed. Reading from chapter twenty three, verse twelve. Emulating the spear of mortal pain.”
Something emerged from where the two magic circles overlapped. It moved so fast that none present could tell what it was until it had embedded itself in Nightmare Moon’s chest with a wet, meaty -thunk-. It held the shape of a spear, but it was comprised of glowing light the same blood red as the circles that had come from Index’s eyes.
Twilight’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes were fixed at the ‘handle’ just in front of her face. If she’d been standing just a little more forward, she would have just lost her nose. She staggered backwards, her feet carrying her away from Nightmare Moon and towards Fluttershy and the others.
Nightmare Moon, for her part, didn’t seem to care much about the spear embedded where her heart should be, save that she grunted and made to pull it out, her hands somehow gripping the handle of crimson light. Her face grew frustrated as the weapon refused to give up its purchase on her, staying put even as her whole chest turned into mist.
Twilight wasn’t surprised that Nightmare Moon couldn’t pull that spear out. If that spear was what Twilight thought it was, then it couldn’t be removed from its target without cutting away the flesh it was stuck in. And that would remain true, even if that flesh wasn’t solid, because that was how magic worked.
If she was right, that that was one of the most powerful spears in any legend ever, and oh help Index had just fired it off with no preparation, and they were in so much trouble…
With one final fruitless tug, Nightmare Moon gave up trying to pull the spear loose. “You little brat…” She seethed. She lifted her right hand into the air, palm up. “Nightmare Forces! Come to my side!”
“Reading from chapter four, verse one. Enemy magician has established summoning beacon.” Index reported tonelessly. “Now beginning countermeasure - ‘Reclaim this world, χάος’.”
While this exchange had been going on, Rarity and Kuroko had managed to untangle themselves from the pile of limbs they had ended up in (on top of their human cushion Touma). Coincidentally, this put them right next to Fluttershy and the still-unconscious Applejack, both of whom had ended up on top of the giant spider at some point.
“This is getting well and truly out of hand…” Kuroko reached for her phone, but her hand only encountered empty space. Misaka, of course, had taken it earlier. “Does anyone here know who that girl is?”
For just an instant, a line of pure black appeared, spreading from the circles in Index’s eyes and continuing on as far as anyone could see. The moment passed, and the line disappeared. There was the sound of rushing wind as air was sucked in to fill a sudden vacuum.
Nightmare Moon’s eyes widened – the line of black passed through her hand where she had been gathering mana for her summons, and everything in that blackness had completely ceased to be. Her spell was destroyed, as was the hand that had been casting it. She shrank ever-so-slightly as mist seeped out of the rest of her body to recreate the missing hand.
Fluttershy swallowed. “T-that’s Index.” She said, with all the volume of a particularly stealthy mouse. “She – she helped me before… I d-don’t understand! She was nice!”
Sure, they’d met on the wrong foot, but Fluttershy had meet lots of her animal friends like that. She couldn’t reconcile the blunt, straightforward, yet gentle young girl to the thing floating in the air. The world was literally fracturing around it! No evidence of any kind of humanity could be seen in those eyes. They were like the eyes of a robot – seeing and evaluating the world around it with no attachment to it whatsoever.
What was this thing that had taken Index’s place?
Nightmare Moon seemed to have recovered from the surprise, her eyes narrowing again into slits. “Try to keep my from my servants, will you?”
She spread her arms in a great arc. “You really think you can keep them from me, their mistress?”
Index’s eyes tracked the hands as they moved through the air. “Enemy is repeating previous tactic. Reading from chapter nineteen, verse six. Multiplying countermeasure.”
Another line of black appeared – this time, one wide enough to swallow Nightmare Moon completely. The dark void of the attack was large enough to carve a shallow trench in the road below, despite being centred at eye-height.
However, it still missed its target, who had turned into mist and scattered in all directions before Index had finished casting.
Kuroko turned to the others. “You need to get out of here. Now.”
Twilight, who had been staring at the battle in steadily escalating horror, blinked and looked over at Kuroko. “Huh?”
“I said you need to go!” Kuroko snapped. “Human beings shouldn’t be anywhere near a battle like this!”
She reached over to grab Twilight’s hand, at the same time turning her head to get a good look at the girl Fluttershy had identified as Index. She had no idea what was going on – a recurring theme tonight – but the only person Kuroko knew with beam-type attacks anywhere near this strong was the #4, and Kuroko wasn’t about to try her luck against a Level 5. Still, she needed to be able to give an accurate description to Anti-Skill. Whatever countermeasures they employed would need to be tailored specifically to this esper.
But, as her eyes focused, trying to take in every detail of the girl in the white costume, something impossible happened.
At the edges of her vision, Kuroko thought that she saw something moving around inside the black cracks that surrounded Index like barbed wire.
She didn’t see it in any detail. Indeed, she suddenly realised that the thought of seeing it any more clearly filled her with utter, irrational panic.
At the same time came another realisation: her instincts were screaming at her; telling her something that was as simple as it was unscientific.
Do not leave the safety of the third dimension.
Then, one last realisation. At some point, Index’s head had moved to fix its soulless gaze in her direction.
Fluttershy screamed.
Everyone whirled around at once, and saw immediently what had her so frightened. Nightmare Moon’s mist form had wrapped itself around Fluttershy’s head. Somewhat surreally, the spear of mortal pain was there as well – the ‘handle’ of the spear was sticking out of the mist-cloud, the ‘head’ still refusing to relinquish its hold on its target.
The spider she was riding reacted badly to Fluttershy’s panic – it ‘reared’ up on four of its back legs. Fluttershy’s screaming went up an octave, but she managed to grab on and stay on her arachnid steed. Applejack, still out cold, was thrown clear.
Index’s emotionless eyes took in the scene. “Enemy is repeating tactic. Countermeasure remains the same. Reclaim this world, χά- ack!”
Index’s mouth let out a surprisingly human cry of pain, which was almost certainly due to how the kitten on her head had sunk its claws into the flesh below.
Get out of here, nice lady! The kitten seemed to yowl. I’ll hold her off!
Index’s hand swiped upwards in an attempt to dislodge the kitten from her skull, but her hand just brushed past it without harm. It too was under the protection of the Walking Church.
Realising that they had been granted precious seconds to act in, those around Fluttershy all tried to get her away from the cloud of mist around her head.
Twilight tried scooping the mist away with a forcefield, but the mist was too fast – it kept moving out of the way.
Rarity focused her magic, hoping that some of the mist still counted as the clothing it once was – no good.
Touma got up and swiped at the cloud with his right hand. Just like with Twilight, the mist swiftly floated out of his reach, his fingers only brushing against the spear of light still embedded in it. The spear shattered, but the cloud remained around Fluttershy’s head.
Kuroko glanced back and forth between Index and Fluttershy, caught in the ancient dilemma of knowing that she had to do something, but not having the first idea as to what.
Index began speaking again, drawing Kuroko’s attention back to her. Index spoke a long, almost melodic string of foreign words, only one of which Kuroko actually recognised – ‘Baset’. The kitten on Index’s head became quiet and still. And with that, Index’s eyes refocused on the cloud of mist around Fluttershy’s head.
Kuroko’s brain decided that it was fed up with all this high-end thinking, and fell back to old patterns. She swiped a hand across her inner thigh, causing the nails strapped there to disappear as she touched them.
Instantaneously, the nails reappeared.
Bent, discoloured, and warped, black lightning sparking between them and the cracks around Index.
Each one reappeared in a random location around Index.
Not a single one anywhere near where she had sent it.
Index’s mouth, that empty voice speaking once more. “Reclaim this world, χάος.”
-BOOM!-
It took Kuroko several seconds to remember that Index’s attack didn’t make a -boom- noise.
She was wreathed in lightning from head to toe, looking to all the world like the second coming of Zeus.
Sparks jumped between locks of tea-coloured hair. Kuroko’s phone clutched in one hand, electricity playing over its surface.
For some reason, Touma had jumped behind the spider at the sight of her, sweating bullets.
“Kuroko, come on!” Misaka said, lowering her arm. “What was the point of leaving you behind if you’re just going to arrive before me and get killed by someone else?! That’s it! Next time I’m just going to leave you tied and gagged on your bed!”
Kuroko had just stared down a death to some force she could barely comprehend, one incident in a long string of a very stressful events. Nonetheless, the words popped into her mouth without so much as a beat.
“Oh, but if it’s Sissy that’s tying me up then I don’t mind at all~”
“Don’t make this weird!” Misaka glanced over at the girls huddled around the giant spider, an unknown foe before her, and felt more than a little deja vu.
Misaka glanced over at Index’s body. She had just fired a fully-fledged raingun attack at that white-gold nun – with those black cracks around her, simultaneously absorbing all light and bleeding into the space around them, she had taken no chances. No matter what level of protection she had up, her target should at least have been knocked off her feet by the shockwave. Despite that, Index was still hanging unnaturally in mid-air, her Walking Church not even showing a scorch mark.
“Error. Reading from chapter ten, verse sixteen. Mana analysis inconclusive. Symbolism a 76% match for god of thunder, Thor. Preparing appropriate countermeasures.” Index said, still speaking in a toneless, dead-sounding voice. Her eyes didn’t move in the slightest.
“So, who’s this freak? Did some idiot go and build another cyborg esper?” Misaka thumbed at Index. “And where’d that Moon-crazy lady go?”
Nightmare Moon.
Yes, where had Nightmare Moon gone?
Wait.
Wasn’t she still wrapped around Fluttershy’s head?
Kuroko whirled around.
While everyone had been distracted by the arrival of Misaka, Nightmare Moon had moved. No longer tightly wrapped around Fluttershy’s head, she was free to spread out. She had reformed on the other side of the group from Index. Nightmare Moon stood straight, her Nightmare Mist spreading out like a wall of darkness behind her.
“Your queen thanks you for your service, distractions.” She said condescendingly.
The corner of her mouth turned up into yet another arrogant smirk. “However, I have no more use for you. My true servants are on their way.”
“Ready to give up yet, Princess?”
Princess Celestia’s gaze answered for her, defiant and unbowed.
It didn’t quite match the situation she had found herself in, though. She was surrounded on all sides by the Nightmare Forces, hovering in a small sphere of air that was completely encased by thick, dark smoke.
Her horn was flaring brightly, as it had been for several minutes now. The magical glow was a bright gold, the same colour as the sphere keeping the Nightmare Forces at bay. The strain of keeping that barrier up was obvious, however – she was sweating so much that her fur was sticking to her body in ugly clumps.
Celestia gritted her teeth. Casting two spells at once was far more difficult than casting both of them separately, and casting two spells as difficult as her anti-Nightmare spell and a teleport at the same time was beyond even her. But if she dropped her protective spell, the Nightmare Forces would be on her in an instant. The instant they dragged her into the realm of dreams, the battle would be over and she would have lost.
There was no way out, but she had to hold on. She had to give her little ponies as much time as possible to deal with Nightmare Moon on her own. Once her minions joined her –
There was a sudden change on the air. The blurred outlines of faces in the smoke all turned to face the same direction.
“Do you feel that?” “What’s going on?” “Our queen needs us!”
Celestia’s eyes widened. “No!” She somehow found the strength to expand her magical shield, pushing back against the Nightmare Forces. “You haven’t captured me yet!”
“She’s right…” “The queen will be so mad with us if we let her go free…”
“Go free?” One of the smoke faces scoffed. “Free to go where? Its not like she can leave the moon.”
“Oh yeah…” “That’s right! She’s locked up just like our queen was!” “Why were we even trying to capture her in the first place?”
“If you leave me up here, I…” Celestia hesitated, frantically trying to think of a threat. “I’ll destroy everything! Every part of your kingdom on the moon!”
“Big deal.” The same scoffing voice from before said. “Our queen promised us a new kingdom on Earth anyway.”
Celestia couldn’t see exactly which face was talking, but she could hear the smirk in its voice. “Have fun up here all by yourself. Maybe we’ll send someone to check on you… once every two hundred years!”
The smoke around her broke out into mocking laughter. As one, the entire mass surged upwards in the direction of the planet.
“No!” Celestia cried, flying upwards, trying to stay with them, but she ran hard and fast into the seal, purple-black sparks flying as the magic stopped her from proceeding. “Come back here!”
“See you later, Princess!”
As one, the Nightmare Forces vanished, as they allowed themselves to be taken by the call of Nightmare Moon…
“Lay down on ground and put hands behind head.”
Dozens of robotic suits with oil-drum heads began to pour out of the connecting streets, surrounding the entire scene.
“Oh, yeah.” Misaka said. “I forgot to mention: I kinda ran into Anti-Skill on the way here. Getting past them was what took me so long to get here.”
Nightmare Moon placed a hand on her face. “Cockroaches. Everywhere I go, more cockroaches…”
“Battlefield situation has significantly changed.” Index’s eyes glanced at what could be seen of the powered suits behind the Nightmare Mist. “Reassessing.”
“Last warning! Ground, down, now!” The voice of the Anti-Skill lady blared out.
The Nightmare Forces were vicious monsters of smoke and terrible dreams. They were blindly loyal to their mistress, Nightmare Moon.
The _________ _____ were vicious monsters of smoke and terrible dreams. They were blindly loyal to their mistress, _________ ____.
The Nightmare Forces were vicious monsters of smoke and terrible dreams. They were blindly loyal to their mistress, Nightmare Moon.
Nightmare Moon looked up at the sky. “Finally.”
Cries of confusion came from the Powered Suits as the Anti-Skill officers piloting them took notice of the nearby skyscrapers disappearing under a wave of dark smoke.
“Now, my subjects!” Nightmare Moon gestured around her. “Sink them all into the realm of nightmare!”
Rarity found her voice. It had been stuck in her throat, along with her heart. “More smoky nightmare-themed minions?” She let out a slightly forced giggle. “Darling, I understand working to a theme, but you could stand to include a little more variety in your repertoire.”
The smoke rolled forward, enveloping everything. Due to the way they completely blocked sight, it felt like the very edge of the world was moving towards them.
The Powered Suits sprayed Sponge Dust at the new threat. It didn’t help. Just like the Shadowbolts, they were smoke rather than mist.
The smoke enveloped the lines of Powered Suits standing around the battlefield. Whenever they disappeared from sight, the sound of pistons hissing and the impact of metal on metal sounded out. Each and every one of the suits were collapsing to the ground.
Twilight saw what was happening and raised a forcefield around her and her friends. If she only had to worry about the Nightmare Forces, this might have worked. Unfortunately, Nightmare Moon was not about to let them escape so easily, and shattered the forcefield with a single impact of her Nightmare Mist.
Kuroko spun on the spot and grabbed the first person in reach – which happened to be Rarity. With no time to waste, she teleported out with her one passenger.
Touma tried to fend off the smoke creatures with his right hand, but a single point of defence was little help against a foe that attacked from all directions. In short order, each remaining member of that small group had been enveloped by the smoke and fallen to the ground unconscious.
“Reassessment of battlefield completed.” Index’s voice rang out. “Priority target remains the same. Secondary targets carry the curse of endless nightmares. Countering with the blessing of the spider woman, Asibikaashi.”
Underneath her floating body, another blood-red circle appeared, with lines criss-crossing the inside that resembled a spider’s web.
“Five seconds until the spell Sulphur rain will scorch the earth.”
The child pulled harder on their magic.
They were at their limit already – they could feel the strain on their soul – but they had to keep going. They were being watched. Evaluated. Judged.
The child knew that progressing past here was dangerous.
They also knew that not doing so was accepting failure.
The child pulled harder.
They could feel immediently that something had gone wrong. Magic wasn’t supposed to flow this easily, or this swiftly.
The child tried to stop, but their magic didn’t listen. It just flowed out without end.
The child could hear panicked screaming. They could feel their parents buried underneath the flow of supernatural power, their cries suddenly cut off.
The child couldn’t stop, no matter how badly they wanted to. Their magic just gushed out uncontrolled, like a burst water main.
“He-help!”
No one came at the child’s shout.
Why was no-one coming?
There…
There had to be someone who could help…
Right?
<What’s going on?!> Saten leaned over Uiharu’s shoulder, squinting at the tiny screen. She’d been asking minor variations on that question for a while now – the tiny screen was far too small for two people to watch together, especially something as chaotic as this battle.
<I… some kind of sleeping gas, maybe…? Misaka seems to still be standing…> Uiharu frantically worked the controls on the console. It’s display showed Misaka still in the fight, giving off sparks like a Van de Graaff generator. That said, while she was still upright, she was wincing, her teeth were clenched, and one hand clutched her head. The dark smoke that had just arrived on the scene was swirling around her, like it was somehow attracted to her.
Uiharu flicked a joystick, and the view on the screen jumped to that of a different camera. <Wait, that can’t be right…>
<What can’t be right?> Saten pressed her cheek up against Uiharu’s in order to get a better view. Uiharu’s face flushed at the close contact.
<T-the…> She stammered out. <The Anti-Skill officers…>
<Yeah?> Saten squinted at the screen. The adults in powered suits had joined the unconscious children lying on the ground, their heads presumably stuck in dreamland. <What about them?>
<They’re operating those suits remotely!>
<They’re – wait, but –> Saten drew her head back, blinking stupidly.
<I know!> Uiharu fretted. <The actual Anti-Skill officers are in a building halfway across the city!>
<But…> Saten gaped. What kind of Ability could knock someone out, when they were on the other end of a camera and a microphone?
-Pant, pant-
“Stop running and let me kill you, you brat!”
There was a man with a knife chasing after a small child.
He was yelling death threats for all the world to hear. This was not occurring in some back alley street. Just behind the man were the front gates to the local kindergarten.
Passersby would look up in alarm at the violent shouting, but their expressions would change completely when they saw who he was yelling at. Somehow, the perfectly natural response of concern and worry would turn into devilish glee.
The child’s face was streaked with tears as the chase continued. Their legs burned, their lungs struggled to draw breath. The only reason they had lasted this long was because the man with the knife was so drunk he could barely stand upright.
All the child could think of was those expressions of delight. The observers, adults and children both, were silently egging the man on.
Why?
What could they have possibly done to deserve this?
Mama… Papa… please… help…!
Saten rocked back on her heels, blinking stupidly. Uiharu cradled a phone receiver between her shoulder and her head, her hands still frantically working the game console.
After another few seconds, Uiharu shook her head, dropping the phone. <It’s no good. Anti-Skill hung up. They’re too busy escalating to talk to me.>
<What about the biometrics?>
<Huh?>
<Those remote-operation pods monitor their occupant's conditions, right? Maybe we can use those to figure out what’s wrong with the pilots!>
Uiharu bit her lower lip. She didn’t actually have clearance for that information, and she didn’t have time to request it through normal channels. She would be in serious trouble if she was caught hacking an Anti-Skill facility, especially when it was in crisis mode.
On the tiny screen, Misaka desperately dived to the side to avoid a thrust of mist from the black-and-purple woman. It hadn’t been a serious attack, Uiharu could tell, because she was far too occupied in exchanging fire with the girl in the white nun costume.
While Misaka staggered to her feet, the while nun and the black-and-purple lady threw countless different attacks at each other… Uiharu didn’t know Abilities could be so versatile!
(She had already run their faces and Abilities through Academy City’s Bank. No hits. Whoever those two were, they were not officially registered as Espers.)
Misaka reached into a pocket for a coin, but the smoke swirled around her even tighter around her, and she dropped it to clutch her head with both hands.
…
Uiharu loaded up her hacking toolkit and set to work.
The child walked down a dirt road, alone.
Today had been a busy day at school. The child wanted nothing more than to lay down and forget the homework due tomorrow, but their parents would never allow that. They were raising the child to be hard-working, and they weren’t going to slack off in their parenting by allowing their child to slack off in their school work.
The child pushed open the front gate, calling out that they were home.
No one answered. That was weird. Normally one of their parents would be waiting to greet them when they got home.
…why were the police here? Why did they have their hats clutched under one arm?
Why was granny crying so much?
Anti-Skill’s digital security was top-of-the-line, but it wasn’t for nothing that she was known as Academy City’s gatekeeper.
Slipping in through a back-door she’d left on a… previous visit, she accessed the biometric data on the Anti-Skill pilots. She herself couldn’t make any sense of it, but the software was smart enough to list possible ailments in order of probability. And at the top of the list, far about the other possible causes, sat…
<Nightmares?> Saten leaned in close again.
Uiharu switched to the feed from another pod. Same prediction. A third pod showed the same. On and on down the line, the computers were all receiving data from their pilots consistent with distressed REM sleep.
<What kind of power could do that?> Saten fretted. She was wringing her hands, stress etched into her face.
Fortunately, Judgement training actually covered this sort of situation. <Well, it can’t just be the visual stimulus of the smoke, or we’d be affected too. Misaka seems to be resisting it, which means it’s probably some variant of Mental Out with weird range parameters. Like… maybe it only affects those that are ‘engulfed’ by the smoke?>
<Wait, so once you’re clear of the smoke, you can wake up normally?>
<Sorry, but no. All of the pods are trying to awaken their occupants with automatic injections of adrenalin, but that’s having no effect. Their brains have been somehow tricked into staying asleep, like some kind of nightmare coma.>
Uiharu change her console’s view back to the fight. The smoke had mostly abandoned Misaka to swirl around the nun-girl instead. It wasn’t having much luck getting close, because the black cracks around her seemed to suck in any smoke that got close.
<So, if the nightmare they’re having was disrupted, they’d wake up?>
<…maybe? I don’t really know enough to say– what are you doing?>
Saten was rummaging through Uiharu’s closet, pulling out items as she found them. <Artificial telekinesis toy… scent recorder… yes! This is everything I need!>
<What are you doing?>
<The battle’s happening up near that entrance to the underground mall, right?>
<Yes, but –>
<Oh, and I'll need to borrow your mobile. The moon lady kinda broke mine. Thanks!>
<Saten, wait! Come back!>
The child was falling.
Falling from such a great height.
They couldn’t fly. They’d never been able to fly.
The wind stole the scream from their lungs as the child plummeted towards their doom.
<This is really, really dangerous!>
<Come on, Uiharu. I saw as well as you did that the fight has moved on down the street.>
<Only because they ran out of buildings to throw at each other!>
Saten ran down the street (which indeed was missing several buildings), an armful of consumer electronics in her arms and Uiharu’s mobile phone held with a shoulder. Even while running, she was opening the various toys and appliances up and inserting them into each other in a way that looked haphazard, but at the same time, the devices fit together perfectly.
<What are you even doing?!>
<Have you heard about Indian Poker? I won’t blame you if you haven’t, it’s pretty new. There are plans on the net for building a machine out of Academy City’s consumer tech that can record and playback dreams!>
<Wait, really?>
<Yeah! Lucky for me you owned all the required parts!>
<Wow! You’ve really been recording your dreams?>
<…>
<…>
<…>
<Er, Saten, you have built one of these before, right? You know whether or not they even work, right?>
<Oh hey look! There’s the battle!>
<Saten!>
<Sorry, gotta go! Bye!>
Saten loosened her shoulder grip on the phone, causing it to fall to noisily fall to the ground. With her arms quite full, she had no way to just end the call and pocket the phone.
It looks like some old episode of InuYasha, crossed with Gundum! Saten thought, looking at the deadly light-show that was the battle.
Thick black smoke lay on the ground, swirling as though with purpose. Occasionally, Saten could glimpse small lights floating around in that smoke, always in a pair so they looked like glowing red eyes.
From her position further down the street, Saten could see three figures still upright. Nightmare Moon and that while-clothed nun girl were throwing attack after attack at each other, destroying large chunks of the landscape with every miss. Saten noted that Nightmare Moon kept repeating the same attacks in different ways, while the nun girl’s attacks were completely different each time.
The figure that Saten actually wanted to win wasn’t doing so well. Misaka was mostly ignored by the other two figures, but was still clutching one hand to her head, clearly in pain.
Every time she focused on Nightmare Moon, the smoke would swirl around her more swiftly, and Misaka would be forced to abandon her attack in pain.
When she turned her attention to the nun girl, her attacks had no effect. The nun girl would just glance at her and mutter something, then turn back to Nightmare Moon.
Saten swallowed. Seeing the vast amounts of power in play made her feel quite small.
Still. She’d come here for a reason. About half-way between where Saten was now and where the battle was taking place were several bodies laying splayed out on the ground. Amazingly, despite the destruction all around them, none of the people seemed to be hurt; although a giant spider was lying on the ground next to Fluttershy with grievous wounds. It seemed to have been intercepting attacks on her behalf.
Saten hands tightened their grip. She had to hurry.
The device she’d cobbled together looked kind of like a rice cooker with a narrow slot in the front. The buildings alongside the road had been reduced to rubble, but by divine providence Saten found an exposed power port that still worked. She plugged in her load and turned it on.
Come on, come on. She prayed.
With agonising slowness, the small machine printed out a slip of plastic the size and thickness of a playing card.
A series of loud noises – -bang-s, -zap-s and -boom-s – caused her to flinch with the unwelcome reminder that she was working next to something that might as well have been a war-zone. A quick glance up the street reassured her that she hadn’t been noticed yet.
With a handful of Indian Poker cards in hand, Saten ran back over to the unconscious figures and started laying down cards on their foreheads.
Once they had had a couple of seconds to ‘set’, she would randomly swap the cards around and peel off the outer plastic coating, causing the cards to release the recorded dreams via a technical process that Saten had barely glanced over.
Lets see what happens to your infinitely-looping videos when I stick pop-up ads in the middle of them!
The officers looked over at the approaching child, then they all looked away. None of them seemed to want to look the child in the eye.
“Granny?” The child’s voice was hesitant, frightened.
The old woman’s voice sounded a hundred years older than it had that morning. “Oooo… Oooooo…”
She opened her mouth…
“I mean it, you walking disaster! You really are going to die!”
All present turned around in shock.
There was a man chasing a young kid with a knife. The sight was so unexpected, everyone’s mouths opened in shock.
Even as they watched, the kid tripped over a rock in the dirt road.
“Finally got you, brat!” The man screamed. He straddled the kid, gripped his knife in both hands, and raised it up behind him, ready to swing down…
Suddenly, however, his fingers went slack, and the knife fell. His whole body began to twitch. He looked down, shocked. There were two petal prongs with wires leading out of them, stabbing into the centre of his chest. He looked up again, tracing the wires with his eyes to the small gun-like device in the hands of one of the officers.
His body was already starting to fall over when another one of the officers crash-tackled him.
The child didn’t even have the energy to cry anymore. The only energy they seemed to have left inside them was the endless fountain of magic that ignored all of their commands to stop.
The child had no idea how much time had passed. It felt like forever. With this much magic in the air, it might have been.
The light started to leave the child’s eyes as a new thought occurred to them.
If they died, would the magic stop?
Or would it continue on forever, their soul sealed inside their own corpse by–
-BONK-
The child suddenly started seeing stars that they were quite certain had nothing to do with the magic.
They rubbed their head and blinked the pain away. A short distance away, another child did the same.
The first child’s mouth fell open. Had that other kid just fallen from the sky?
Wait.
Had… had…
Had the magic actually… stopped?
The children all looked at each other with shock.
“That wasn’t what happened that day…”
The realisation was almost simultaneous. “I’m dreaming!”
The eyes of four teenagers suddenly shot open, and they all struggled to their feet.
<It worked!> Saten jumped in the air, fist raised.
<Saten?!> Misaka was surprised (and annoyed) to see her. <First Kuroko, now you?! If Uiharu parachutes into the middle of this battle, I’m quitting!>
“What?” Nightmare Moon took her eyes of Index to glance back at the group. “You people again? Do I have to rip the flesh from your very bones before you will stop bothering me?!”
“Reading from chapter 13, verse 12. Optimal strategy for defeating the enemy calculated.”
Nightmare Moon actually rolled her eyes before turning back to Index. “You are also beginning to try my patience.”
Index did not respond, but the magic circles floating before her pulsed with power once again. From the cracks that surrounded Index came five different beams of pure white light. None of them hit Nightmare Moon, for none of them were aimed at her. Instead, they surrounded her like the bars of a cage, sealing her movements.
Several members of the Nightmare Forces were in the path of the beams, and they screamed as the light annihilated everything in its way.
Nightmare Moon didn’t seem bothered at all, letting out an overly dramatic sigh. “For all the effort I put into corrupting them, the Nightmare Forces can’t even serve as distractions against you.”
But the corners of her mouth quickly moved up once again. “Fortunately, I have much better servants.”
“Enemy is immobilised. Five seconds until the spell– warning.”
Index’s inhuman eyes suddenly widened, and the five beams of light abruptly cut off. There was a strange tension in her body like it was straining under a great weight.
“Reading from chapter 1, verse 13. Breach detected in internal defences.”
The funny thing was, Index didn’t have any memories from before a year ago. She didn’t know why – she just remembered waking up one day, and realising that she knew everything about magic, and nothing about anything else.
She knew enough that when a pair of strange magicians began to pursue her, she could evade. She had no magic of her own beyond her Walking Church, but with only that she had evaded two magicians well out of her league. They had continued to chase her, and she had continued to run away.
The upshot of this was that Index’s memories consisted of the contents of 103,000 grimoires and a year's worth of running for her life. Between the corruptive influence of the grimoires and a ‘lifetime’ of fleeing, Index’s sleeping moments were often filled with nightmares.
The perfect environment for a dream spirit like the Tantabus.
It wouldn’t even need to try particularly hard – all it would need to do was lull her into the light trance its mistress preferred – the one just within the realm of dreams. Tweak one of her more violent dreams, superimpose her night-time phantoms over its mistress's enemies, and the problem would take care of itself.
The spirit entered that mind filled with 103,000 books and memories of terrified flight.
The books promptly tore it to pieces.
In the outside world, Index’s body lost all tension, and returned to looking like a puppet on strings. “Breach sealed. Intruding spirit destroyed.”
Nightmare Moon was scowling again, a deeper and more furious scowl than before. “The Tantabus was one of my most useful servants.” She said. “You will pay most dearly for its destruction.”
Despite having said that, her head turned to look behind her at Twilight and the others. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of them, and she quickly turned to look at the Nightmare Forces instead. The smoke monsters were still swirling around Misaka and Index. “Well? What are you waiting for? Take care of them!”
With that she turned back to face Index, and a cacophony of light and noise began between the two as countless spells were exchanged once more.
While some remained to seal Misaka’s actions, most of the Nightmare Forces advanced on the five teens – Twilight, Touma, Saten, Applejack and Fluttershy. Twilight, Touma and Saten all began to back up.
Applejack turned to face Twilight. “This migh’ seem like a stupid question, but, uh… what in Sam Hill is goin’ on? Last ah know, ah was gettin’ in line for the pearly gates.”
“Smoke monsters about to sink us into eternal nightmares. Again.” Twilight hissed back.
“Ah.” Applejack said, as though that had somehow made sense.
A scream sounded, off to their side. Feeling deja vu, Twilight looked over. Fluttershy had just discovered the devastated state her new spider friend was in. “Mr Spider!”
Applejack quickly looked between Fluttershy and the spider. “Wait, wha…? Never mind. This isn’t the time, ‘Shy!”
Applejack tried to pulled Fluttershy away, but the girl only clung tighter to the arachnid. “Mr Spider, how could someone do this to you?”
Twilight jumped as a hand appeared on her shoulder. Spinning around, she found Touma behind her. His face bore an expression of great seriousness, and he spoke words will the same gravity, gesturing wildly.
…unfortunately, those words were in Japanese.
Applejack glanced back at Twilight. “He says tha’ if we can’t run away, we hafta attack.”
“Wait, what?!”
“He’s askin’ ya to cover him!”
“I… wait!”
Touma wasn’t waiting. He put both feet to the ground and took off like a rocket.
With Touma running towards the Nightmare Forces and those forces flying towards him, it took only two seconds before they reached each other. The first member of the Forces spread itself outward, two ‘arms’ extended out as though inviting Touma to hug it.
Touma, for his part, clenched his right fist and punched the smoke monster right between the glowing dots that he guessed were eyes.
-Shatter-!
The black smoke disappeared, revealing a short, hairy man with Touma’s fist pressed into his nose. He yelped as his nose made a -crunch- noise, and he was blown off his feet with the force of the punch.
Strangely, for the duration that Touma’s hand was in contact with his body, the sound of nails on a chalkboard rang out just as it had when he had touched Twilight.
The other members of the Nightmare Forces seemed to draw back in surprise from that, allowing Touma the chance to run further forward. Their state of stupor did not last, however. After another five steps (and another two dispellings), the Forces regained their mental footing, and surged around him.
They would surround and envelope him, and he would be trapped in eternal nightmares, just as he had been before. His hand might have been able to remove their Mistress’s ‘blessings’, but it wouldn’t stop their curse if he wasn’t touching himself. And if he did that, they had other ways to attack him.
It was a simple calculation. There was one of him and hundreds of the Nightmare Forces. Raw numbers would wear him down eventually.
The Nightmare Forces surged forwards…
…and, well, there isn’t really an onomatopoeia for the sound smoke makes when it smashes into a forcefield.
Because, of course, it wasn’t one versus hundreds.
Touma felt someone press their back up against his. He glanced over his shoulder, and found Twilight behind him.
It was five versus hundreds.
Touma’s charge had attracted the attention of the Nightmare Forces, focusing it all onto him. Twilight had his back, using forcefields to keep the Forces from surrounding him. Ironically, by swarming Touma, the Forces had just gathered themselves in one place. This made the task of dispelling their smoke forms much easier.
One might think this left Applejack, Saten and Fluttershy with nothing to do. Such a thinker would be forgetting that Applejack already knew a way to deal with smoke creatures, and could somewhat speak Japanese. Some frantic shouting at Saten led Applejack to what she wanted: an emergency fire hose from one of the broken buildings. Even Academy City, the home of advanced technology, still sometimes resorted to pouring water on their fires.
With that, Applejack now had a weapon to use on the Nightmare Forces.
“Over here, ya overgrown dust bunnies!”
Some of the Nightmare Forces turned away from Touma to find a high-pressure water nozzle pointed squarely at them. Why this would be a problem for them didn’t click until Saten opened up the valve and a huge stream of water was sent their way.
Applejack had aimed low, and so so only washed away the ‘feet’ of a few of the Forces. The sight of their fellows screaming in pain and flying away clued the Nightmare Forces in that that hose was an actual problem for them. They scattered whenever Applejack swung the nozzle in their direction.
Knowing that the girls had his back, Touma ran forward. If they got bogged down fighting the army, they would lose. Their only chance was to go straight for the general in command of that army.
(And while I’m there, I can get an explanation out of Index as to what she’s doing! The eternal optimist thought to himself.)
The ring of smoke monsters thickened in front of him as he ran, as if they were operating under the Doppler effect. That was fine by Touma. With Twilight keeping them off his back, he was free to sweep his hand back and forth as though he was removing cobwebs.
-Shatter- -Shatter- -Shatter- -Shatter- -Shatter-…
“Umph.” Twilight grunted. While the increased density of opponents made it easier to dispel them, it also meant they could bring more force to bear on her forcefield. Despite her best efforts, it was starting to form cracks.
-Shatter- -Shatter- -Crack- -Shatter- -Crack- -Crack- -Shatter- -Shatter-…
Come on, Sparkle!
Nightmare Moon was busy with her battle against Index. If they could fight their way through to her… She just had to keep it together!
-Crack- -Crack- -Shatter- -Crack-…
Come on!
-Shatter-!
“No!”
The forcefield was down. With their obstruction destroyed, the Nightmare Forces surged forward.
A great wind blew through the area, strong enough to force Twilight to close her eyes.
…
…
Huh?
Twilight opened her eyes.
The Nightmare Forces were gone (apart from the ones Touma had dispelled, who were lying on the ground unconscious.) Hovering in the air in their place was…
“R-rainbow?”
“What’s the matter, Twilight?” Rainbow mocked. “I thought you were going to handle everything by yourself?”
“Yeah, that… didn’t work out.” Twilight shakily got to her feet. “What did you…?”
“Smoke’s a kind of weather too.” Rainbow shrugged. “…though you do have to stretch the meaning of the word ‘weather’. Just a bit.”
Twilight shook her head as if to clear it. Held gingerly under each of Rainbow’s arms was… “Rarity? Pinkie Pie?”
“Hello, dear. My apologies for my brief absence. That young lady – Kuroko, I believe? She was quite insistent that we depart with all haste.” Rarity nodded, delicately freeing herself from Rainbow’s grip. “By the time I’d separated from her, I was already blocks away! Fortunately, I saw Rainbow Dash flying though the sky shortly afterwards and managed to flag her down.”
“Hi Twilight! Sorry I took so long to get here.” Pinkie dropped down and bounced on the balls of her feet. “Turns out there’s no Pinkie Sense for ‘your friends are that way’, so I just had to jump up and down until Rainbow found me!”
“Wasn’t hard.” Rainbow muttered. “The cheerleading outfit kinda stands out.”
“Yes dear, why are you wearing that?” Rarity asked.
“Because I was cheering on my new friend, duh!”
“That actually doesn’t explain–”
“Chaaaarrrrggggeeeee!”
“Pinkie wait! Come back here!”
Pinkie put both feet to the ground and bounded towards Nightmare Moon, smacking Touma on the back as she passed him. Touma blinked at the appearance of another weirdo, but ran faster to keep up with her.
Nightmare Moon was busy using large chunks of building to block and deflect Index’s most recent spell (masses of darkness the size of baseballs that gave off an aura of death and decay). This would be their best shot – there was nothing in their way, and their target was distracted.
The pair charged forward –
“Don’t you touch our mistress!”
Out of nowhere, the Nightmare Forces reappeared.
“Wait, what? I swept all that smoke away!”
“Look at the ground, Rainbow! That fight between Index and Nightmare Moon has torn up the asphalt! They’re slinking back to the battlefield in the cracks in the ground, where you can’t get at them!”
“What? That’s cheating!”
The others immediently resumed their fight against the Nightmare Forces, but they were out of position. Even Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be able to fight her way through the Forces to the pair in time.
Touma was flat out. Pinkie was keeping up, her feet seeming to bounce off the ground as she moved. They were so close! Just a little bit more!
Pinkie put a hand on Touma’s back. “Don’t worry, I have a good feeling about this!”
With surprising strength, she pushed hard, sending Touma flying forward…
People need to stop flinging me around like a pinball!
Still, Touma knew what he had to do.
He clenched his fist, and punched Nightmare Moon in the back of the head.
The sound of nails scrapping down a chalkboard rang out.
The sound of glass shattering did not.
“Did you forget, you simple-minded fool?”
Nightmare Moon spun around, driving a knee deep into Touma’s gut. The force of the blow lifted Touma off the ground, sending him flying.
“I’m real.”
Rainbow blinked, staring at the sight. One of the Nightmare Forces wriggled in her grasp. “What was the point of that?”
“Apparently, he can dispel magical effects by punching them.” Twilight blocked the attack of one of the Forces with another forcefield, then suddenly angled the field down to slam the creature into the ground.
“Seriously?” Rainbow slammed the head of the smoke monster she was holding into one of its comrades. For some reason, this seemed to stun both of them. “That’s actually awesome. …sucks that it didn’t work, though.”
“…”
“…”
Twilight didn’t know how to continue from there, so the pair just continued to fight in awkward silence.
The battle was waging even as they stood there, but Twilight found it hard to care. She had the feeling that if she didn’t say something here, she would never have the chance to say it.
So she gathered up all her pride, and set it to one side. “…thank you.”
“Huh?” Rainbow blinked. “What for?”
Twilight nervously rubbed her arm. “For coming back.”
A slow smile crept over Rainbow’s face. “Heh. As if I’d leave you guys hanging. I know you’d all be doomed without me.”
“Oi.”
“Now come on!” Rainbow jumped back into the air, grinning widely. “I wanna punch Nightmare Moon too!”
“No, no, no, no!”
With every word, Celestia slammed herself into the shimmering field of magic before her.
“No, no, no, no!”
This couldn’t be it! It couldn’t have gone this wrong!
She had been hoping for this day for a thousand years. The day when her sister would once again stand before her, and Celestia would have a chance to explain, and they could just be sisters again…
But Luna hadn’t listened. She’d clamped her ears and her heart shut, and had refused all chance of reconciliation.
The flapping of Celestia’s wings slowed, and she slowly came to a halt in mid-air.
…was this her fault?
She had known this day was coming, ever since that prophecy had been made. She had once borne the Element of Magic – in the time she had had, she could easily have prepared a trap even her sister couldn’t have escaped from.
But that would mean giving up.
Celestia’s head drooped, and her ears swivelled back.
That would mean never again hearing one of Luna’s clever quips. Never watching her arrange the stars so beautifully. Never see her tenderly ease a nightmare, rather than cause one.
Celestia had been without her sister for an entire millennium. She was not going to waste her one chance to get her back.
…only she had.
She hadn’t done more than say her sister’s name, and Luna had shut her out of her life forever.
Celestia slammed a hoof into the surface of the seal. It wasn’t fair…!
It should be noted that, despite both being called the same thing, the ‘magic’ of Zecora’s world and the ‘magic’ of Index’s world did not operate under the same rules.
In one, magic was an energy created from refining the life force produced from one’s soul. Apart from preventing this refinement of life force, there was no way to prevent the use of magic. The effects of any given spell depended entirely on how the world perceived its casting.
In the other, magic was an energy that suffused one’s entire being. It could be given or taken away in it’s entirety, which would render that person free from magic until that power was retrieved. The effects of a spell depended on fundamental rules that did not change.
You see? Completely different.
…well, actually, not quite.
In both worlds, magic was an ‘energy’.
Keeping that in mind, you could say there were three kinds of spells.
There were spells whose effects had already finished, spells that drew their energy from the world around them, and spells that drew their energy from their caster.
So, in both worlds, there were spells that required a constant flow of power from their caster.
Because it worked the same way in both worlds, such a flow could cross between them without interruption.
But what would happen if someone’s spell had its upkeep disrupted, even from a different context?
Say, because Imagine Breaker was pressed into the back of that person's head?
-Crack-
Celestia’s head shot up like a bullet.
-Crack- -crack- -crack-
Before her disbelieving eyes, cracks were appearing in the shimmering surface of the seal. Then, all at once…
-Shatter-
The seal broke into a thousand glimmering pieces, each of which quickly faded into nothing.
Celestia’s mouth fell open. How…? What had just…? Without the Elements to aid her, was her sister’s seal really this weak?
Had… had her little ponies really done it? Had they managed to…?
The exhaustion laying heavily upon Celestia seemed to evaporate all at once. Her wings snapped open, and she surged into the starry sky.
The moon and the Earth were so far apart that it would take even Rainbow Dash weeks to fly between the two. Mind, Rainbow Dash couldn’t magically move her destination over to her.
Celestia’s hooves hit the dirt outside the Golden Oak library like a meteor impact.
“Princess!” “What’s that? The princess is here?!” “Princess! We were so worried!”
Celestia managed a reassuring smile as she was swarmed by Ponyville ponies. “I’m glad to see you’re all alright, my little ponies…” She was going to ask them what had happened, but they crowded in around her, their cries drowning her out. “Please, there’s no reason to worry…”
The crowd did not quieten. Celestia bit the inside of her cheek. I need to calm them, quickly… ah, of course.
Celestia lifted her head to the sky, golden magic blazing along her horn as she cast the spell that had earned her her Cutie Mark. Far above everypony’s head, the night sky flipped around to make way for the day sky.
It was a quick, unceremonious affair, not at all in the spirit of the Summer Sun Celebration, but now was not the time for such things. Her subjects gasped, then stomped their hooves and cheered as the sun came out.
Celestia noted that the sky did not change itself back to night. Wherever her sister was, Eternal Night did not seem to still be one of her priorities.
“Princess!”
A small reptilian form pushed his way through the crowd around her. Celestia lowered her head down to ground level. “Spike?”
“Princess!” Spike gasped, wringing his tiny dragon claws. “Twilight went looking for you, but she hasn’t come back. Do you know where she’s gone?”
Twilight was missing? Celestia’s heart beat faster. “I saw her, but we were…” She grimaced. “…separated.”
“Bu-but then… where could she be? I-is she safe? Is she still in Ponyville? Is she trapped somewhere, a-and she can’t get out? Does Nightmare Moon have her? Is she hurt?!”
Spike’s imagination was clearly getting away from him, but his worries were far too plausible for Celestia’s comfort. “Spike, take a letter.”
“…or maybe she’s trapped in a dark pit, surrounded by viscous monsters!”
“Spike!” Celestia stomped a hoof. The ponies around her took a step back. Spike jumped a whole foot in the air, which was very impressive for someone his height. “Take a letter.”
Spike blinked stupidly at her for a second, before quickly dashing back inside the library to grab quill and paper. “R-ready?”
“‘Twilight.’” Celestia dictated. “‘I’m coming.’”
The scratching of Spike’s quill abruptly halted. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Celestia confirmed. “Now send it, Spike!”
“A-alright.” Spike rolled up the scroll and blew green flames over it, turning it into shimmering ashes that moved through the sky with purpose. “But what was the point of –”
Just as dramatically as Celestia had arrived, she left – her wings carrying her through the sky as she chased after the magical ash.
Princess Celestia was the ruler of the magical land of Equestria. She was kind, wise, and powerful, and was the teacher of Twilight Sparkle.
________ _______ was the ruler of the ______ ______ ________. She was kind, wise, and powerful, and was the _______ of _______ ______.
Princess Celestia was the ruler of the magic cabal King Arthur’s Horse. She was kind, wise, and powerful, and was the mentor of Twilight Sparkle.
“Twilight, I… what?”
That shout suddenly came to a halt in mid-sentence.
Misaka glanced up. The smoke that was still swirling around her form had slowed at the sound of the shout, so the strain on her body was reduced.
There was a new person who had arrived at the scene. She was floating gently in mid-air, as if it weren’t a strange thing at all to be ignoring gravity. Her hair was so long it reached down to her ankles, and it shimmered with all the colours of an aurora. She was tall; taller than even Nightmare Moon, and she was wearing a beautiful white dress that was accented with gold jewellery.
To her slight surprise, Misaka found herself pointing a finger up at her. “Oh no you don’t! There are too many characters in this scene already!”
“Stiyl, didn’t you kill that woman already? And… is that Index?!”
A freakishly tall red-headed priest and a lady with lopsided jeans ran onto the scene.
Misaka’s right eye twitched.
Chaos ensued.
With so many fighters for ‘good’, one would think that the battle would come to a swift end.
In fact, that line of thinking was backwards.
There were too many fighters. Even if they were comrades who had trained together for years, they all stood at different positions around their targets. With the kind of powerful attacks in play, the issue of friendly fire was hardly a trivial one. That caused them to hesitate in their attacks, allowing their foes to employ their wide-area attacks.
Worse, not all of them were fighting for the same ‘good’. Each of them knew different things about the people involved in the events of tonight, and had different intentions for them.
<Wait, you?! When did you get here, idiot?>
<She noticed me! Retreat!>
<Oh no you don’t! If the world is going to end tonight I’m going to beat you into the ground before it goes!>
…like that, yes.
And even when pre-existing grudges did not exist, most of the people tonight had never met before. Celestia might have been willing to afford Misaka the benefit of the doubt, but she would not be given the same courtesy by Stiyl, and so on.
In a battle like this, that lack of trust and cooperation might be more dangerous than any actual opponent.
That said…
“Warning. Reading from chapter three, verse one. Battle has escalated beyond predetermined limitations. Beginning wide-scale obliteration spell ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’.”
Nobody heard this extremely dangerous statement from Index. It wasn’t that nobody was listening, it was just how chaotic the battle had become. The noise of so many simultaneous fights were drowning out her words, and she made no effort to be heard over the din.
However, there wasn’t a single person on the battlefield who missed what happened next.
Index lifted her arms up high like she was giving praise to some unseen force. High in the sky, a star directly overhead grew brighter.
And brighter.
And brighter.
And brighter, until it suddenly it was too bright to look at.
“Um. What’s that?” Rainbow tilted her head back so as to look up, but was stopped as someone jumped onto her back and clamped their hands over her eyes. Pain flared as weight was placed on her busted ribs.
“Don’t look!”
Judging by the shout, it was Pinkie who had jumped on her back.
“What? Why not?” Rainbow asked, trying unsuccessfully to pry Pinkie’s hands off her face. “Also, that hurts! Get off!”
“Don’t look!” Pinkie repeated. Rainbow could feel Pinkie shiver on her back. Whether from fear or the Pinkie Sense, Rainbow couldn’t tell. “It’s bad.” Pinkie said. “It’s really, really bad, Dashie.”
Normally Rainbow would object to the cutesy nickname, but she was too busy worrying about the situation overhead. You didn’t need to be Pinkie Pie to know that that was an attack spell on the way down.
(Well, it could have been some weird science weapon, Rainbow supposed, but the point was they were all in big trouble.)
Pinkie let go of Rainbow when when Rainbow stopped looking up, so Rainbow looked down to see how the others were reacting.
Twilight was busy yelling at the others not to look up as well. The Princess and the girl with the sword had both switched to attacking the nun, the Princess with bursts of white-hot flame and the swordswoman with impossibly-fast sword strikes.
Neither was making any headway – the distorted space was causing most of the attacks to disappear outright, and even the rare attack that made it through was being soaked up by that white-gold habit like it was nothing more than a water balloon.
The kid who could punch magic in the face was busy helping the others against the Nightmare Forces…
Rainbow set her jaw. “Pinkie! Is that thing up there a magic thing or a science thing?”
“Err…” Pinkie’s voice sounded unhelpfully uncertain. “Well, only three of my fingers are itching, so magic thing, I guess?”
Rainbow could feel a strange heat start to bear down on her from above. “Pinkie!”
“Magic thing!” Pinkie’s voice was much more sure this time. “Absol-definite-lutely!”
“Good enough!” Rainbow tilted her body down and dived.
Touma, meanwhile, had given up trying to figure out was was going on anymore. There was simply too many people running around and yelling, and nobody who was doing so in Japanese.
Instead, he’d settled into a nice rhythm – the people who tried to kill him or trap him in his darkest nightmares, he’d punch in the face.
They only person this hadn’t worked on so far was Misaka, and she was forced to switched targets after he jumped further into the melee to escape her.
Whenever he punched one of the smaller smoke monsters, they would turn into another normal-looking person and stay down on the ground, stupefied. Now, though, Index seemed to have done something new. Everyone was still yelling, but now their yelling was focused on her. The hairs on the back of Touma’s neck were standing up, and an oppressive pressure was building in the air.
Though surrounded by enemies, Touma risked a look upwards, shielding his eyes from the glare with his right hand. The sky was lit once again – not with the sun, but with something much brighter. Something that was getting brighter even as he watched. It felt to Touma less like it was getting more powerful and more like it was getting closer.
Without thinking about it, his gaze shifted to the hand in front of his face. I don’t know what that thing is, but something tells me that I really shouldn’t let it reach the ground. But by the time I can reach it, it will have already enveloped most of the buildings in Academy City!
That thought, that that light could easily envelope the entire city, had no basis in logic. Instead, basic human instinct seemed to be screaming that information at him.
He tore his gaze from the sky and look at at the fighting going on around him. I need some way of getting up there –
That thought was interrupted by a pair of slender arms wrapping around him from behind and lifting him skywards.
Rainbow tried to yell something on the way up, not realising that Touma couldn’t understand a word she was saying.
The ground grew more and more distant as they rose into the air together, racing towards the intensely bright spell above them like some cosmic ceiling.
Their guts told them this was stupid, that they should move in any direction but up, they needed to get away now. The spell above them would bring only death and ruin.
Rainbow’s flight slowed, just a little.
Then, Touma’s head turned just enough that Rainbow could see his grateful smile. Thanks, it seemed to say, for the boost.
Rainbow grit her teeth and flew even faster than before.
Well before they reached it, the pair had to squeeze their eyes shut from the painful light, so powerful that it felt like it was burning their skin. Deprived of visual sensation, Rainbow had to concentrate carefully just to ensure that they continued to fly upwards.
At some point, she realised that Touma was holding his right hand up above their heads.
Neither of them could see, but both of them felt the instant that contact was made with the obliteration spell. Touma was suddenly shoved back down by some incredible force, like he had just run into a steamroller going the other way. Rainbow, despite the pain, was holding tight to Touma, and good thing too – otherwise, she might have kept going right into the spell.
This close, they could hear a deep rumbling noise booming out from the spell above. It threatened to wash out their hearing the same way the light had their sight. But even over that deep, reverberating noise they could hear a sound like glass beginning to crack.
Like the sky itself had been broken in two, the obliteration spell shattered.
“Twilight?”
“Yes, Applejack?”
“Was that nun girl the one who did the crazy thing just now?”
“…yeah.”
“…”
“…”
“So, ah… What kinda limits would there be on tha’ magic o’ hers?”
“…she doesn’t have any.”
“Magic?”
“Limits!”
“Warning.”
The voice coming from Index’s body was not that of a human. It did not – could not – contain petty emotions like worry or concern. Instead, it just seemed… tense.
“Reading from chapter three, verse three. Obliteration spell has been interrupted. Beginning new spell – “
Its words caught in Index’s throat like a hand had clamped shut over her oesophagus. Jerking unnaturally, her head titled to the side, where it could see that Princess Celestia had fearlessly thrust her hand into one of the black cracks in space that surrounded Index.
“I think you have hidden behind these for long enough.” The princess admonished.
Inside the fractures of darkness, something gave a roar that could have been a cry of pain or of pleasure. The blackness permeating the air suddenly had bright, golden light sear out from the very cracks they leaked from. In a mind-bending twist of light, the space around Index returned to normal.
“Enemy strength much greater than initially estimated.” The thing in Index’s body said, noticeably quicker than before. “Commence emulation of the last of the twelve plagues of Egy–”
Seven wires wrapped around Index’s arms and legs, pulling backwards tightly so that her arms and legs were pulled tight behind her.
“Whatever you are –” Kanzaki growled. “– let go of Index!”
A spell raced down the metal wires to press up against the Walking Church. The thing in Index’s body tasted the magic and recognised it as an exorcism spell. The Saint thought her possessed.
“I’m gonna shock you senseless, whoever you are!”
“There will be no need for that, young lady.”
“If any of you touch Index, I’ll burn you to cinders.”
Misaka, Celestia and Stiyl moved in around Index.
“Reading from chapter ten, verse twelve.”
Kanzaki heard Index’s voice and jerked her wires back to stop her from speaking, but the magic circles in front of her eyes pulsed. From them came a man’s voice, deep and powerful. Somehow it seemed to speak in every language at once.
“Let the sun stand still over Gibeon, and the moon over the valley of Aijalon!”
Instantaneously, everyone froze.
Esper, cabal-hunter, matriarch, Saint. Wispy smoke monster, Powered Suit, magician, even Pinkie Pie. It didn’t matter.
All of them stopped moving with no regard for gravity or momentum, like flies caught in amber.
The only sign of life was the white-gold nun in the centre of it all. Even the cat on her head behaved as though he had paid a visit to the taxidermist.
Another one of the red pulses of magic tore off the metal wires that held her limbs. As soon as they weren’t touching her, the wires froze in place as well.
Slowly, almost gently, the thing in Index’s body floated away from the small group of people who had tried to capture it, passing between Misaka and Celestia before turning back to face the group. Swiftly and emotionlessly, it calculated the most efficient way to destroy them.
It ignored the way the body screamed in agony, the way its mana twisted in unnatural ways as it tried to perform outside the limits of humanity without any of the proper preparation. It had calculated that it had another 31 seconds before critical damage would be done to the body. Everything else could be regenerated.
Decision made, the two circles that followed Index’s eyes moved in close, overlapping and merging into one. The new composite circle glowed brighter and brighter as Index continued to stare uncaring.
-Huff, puff-
Index froze, for a moment imitating the victims of her spell. The super-circle in front of her instantly snapped back into the two circles she had started with.
-Huff, puff-
Index’s head turned.
There was a girl with rainbow-coloured hair. She had frozen in place like everyone else, although in her case ‘in place’ meant a metre off the ground, stuck in mid-air.
Jumping up to her was a girl with poofy pink hair. She was reaching around to grab the rainbow girl’s arms, pulling them apart. Her eyes were closed, but her tongue was poking out at Index in a suspiciously well-aimed display of childish defiance.
Underneath the two of them was a boy with spiky black hair, huffing and puffing and moving. He was gingerly walking forwards, wincing every time he put weight on his right leg.
The inhumanity of the thing in Index’s head was displayed clearly when it immediently began to act, not spending a single instant gawking. “Reading from chapter ten, verse fourteen. Subject displays immunity to miracle-class spell. Reverse-calculate source of immunity.”
-Huff, puff-
“Failed. Subject is not using magic. Calculating most effective spell against the attacker – completed. Five seconds until the spell –”
Touma Kamijou pulled his right fist back, and punched Index straight in the face.
Time began to flow once more.
Four powerhouses started as their target suddenly wasn’t were she was supposed to be. From behind them, a dark figure took her chance when she saw that her targets were all distracted.
Focused on the space that Index had just left, none of them saw Nightmare Moon rise up from behind them.
Index had attracted all of the attention to herself with her overpowered spellcasting. Every fighter had immediently designated her the priority target and attacked her with all their power.
But even if she was the ‘lesser’ threat, it was never wise to turn your back to an enemy. Being less of an immedient problem did not make her harmless.
She would sweep across with her Nightmare Mist. By catching them off guard, she would almost certainly get the lightning girl and the fire boy. Her sister and the saint would probably survive, but the former would be holding back out of misplaced sentiment and the latter had not shown any ability to truly kill her. Both of them she could deal with in time.
She swiped her hand down to deal the final blow to this ridiculous fight.
As she did so, a pair of slender arms and a well-loved rope wrapped themselves around her arm and pulled back.
Nightmare Moon actually screamed in frustration. Behind her, Rainbow tightened her grip, and Applejack pulled harder on her rope.
The wisdom of not dismissing an opponent out of hand was one that Nightmare Moon herself had yet to grasp, it seemed.
Nightmare Moon turned to mist, which caused Applejack’s rope to pass through her but not Rainbow’s arms. Her mist-fingers twitched, but Pinkie Pie jumped up and pulled Rainbow away, causing the thrust of Nightmare Mist to miss.
Nightmare Moon made to fly away, but a purple forcefield appeared around her, trapping her like a bug under a cup. Now immobilised, Nightmare Moon solidified to find Fluttershy staring right into her eyes, the girl’s own eyes filled with angry tears.
Nightmare Moon was trapped. The Nightmare Mist was on the other side of the shield. She immediently called it back to her side, but…
-Hiss-
No more Nightmare Mist.
“Are we done with the smoke things?”
Misaka Mikoto strode towards Nightmare Moon, her face as dark as the sky. “’Cause I happen to notice that you don’t have a river handy this time. Go ahead, turn to mist. I haven’t gotten a straight victory all night, and I’m feeling really left out.” An arc of lightning jumped from her head to the ground.
With the threat of deadly microwaves hanging over her head, Nightmare Moon couldn’t use her mist-form to escape. But that wasn’t the end of her bag of tricks!
Tantabus…!
Wait. That ‘Index’ child had destroyed it.
Shadowbolts…!
No, she wouldn’t be able to create more without her opponents noticing.
Nightmare Forces…!
Yes! Only the nun had been outright immune to their curse! If they could handle those fools who thought they could hold her, then her capture would be meaningless!
“Nightmare Forces!” She cried, ignoring how her ‘captors’ tensed up. “Come to the aid of your queen!”
“At once!” They responded as a whole.
The Nightmare Forces surged up, looking to the world like one immense form…!
-Whoosh-
And then a golden dome of flames trapped the Forces underneath – a spell designed to keep them at bay was being used to keep them in. They were now trapped just like how she was trapped.
Oh, of course.
My sister is here, isn’t she?
And that was that. She was out of tricks.
Kanzaki spotted Index shortly after that, lying on the ground with Touma standing over her. With the speed that Saints were famous for, she dashed to Index’s side; sending Touma flying in the process. (“Argh!”) She gave Index a shake – somehow, Index had been knocked unconscious, despite the protection of the Walking Church.
While Kanzaki fretted over Index (and scrupulously checked her for signs of possession), Stiyl moved closer to Nightmare Moon. He eyed the forcefield suspiciously, then started to place rune cards around it as a second line of defence.
His actions did not go unnoticed. “What are you doing?” Celestia asked, her voice carefully neutral.
“I’m a member of the Church of Necessary Evil, Necessarius.” Stiyl said, not pausing in his work. “By right, I should be dealing with all of you, but I’ll just take this one. Academy City can deal with the rest of you.” He moved to place rune cards on the other side of Nightmare Moon, but found his path blocked by Celestia.
“If you think you can take my sister to rot in your Tower of London, Anglican,” the princess said firmly “you are mistaken.”
“That’s cute.” Stiyl put his cigarette back between his teeth. “You think she’ll make it as far as the Tower.”
Celestia’s gaze grew cold – colder than Twilight had ever seen it. Colder than she ever wanted to see.
Before the confrontation could progress any further, however, there came the sound of a quiet giggle.
All present turned to face Nightmare Moon.
She was trapped inside a perfect cage. She could break it by turning into mist, but in that time Misaka would literally vaporise her. There would be no escape for her.
So why was she sitting there, a mad grin on her face?
“…is something funny?” Stiyl asked.
“Fools.” Nightmare Moon said. “You’re all fools. You think you’ve won.”
Twilight felt like a weight had just appeared in her stomach.
“Luna.” Celestia reached forward to touch Nightmare Moon. “Luna, please. Please, just stop.”
Nightmare Moon bared her teeth at the outstretched hand, causing Celestia to hesitantly draw her hand back. “No, I will not stop. Not when I am so close.”
She straightened her back. “Why don’t you climb back into your seal, soft-hearted sister of mine, and wait for the end?”
Kanzaki extended her sword just slightly out of its scabbard, causing Nightmare Moon to grimace. “Enough.”
“If you do not remove your curse on the sun within the next minute, I’ll burn one of your fingers off.” Stiyl threatened. “Each minute you delay, another finger. You better hurry, or I’ll end up incinerating your entire body, one small piece at a time.”
“Yeah, who exactly are you guys again?” Misaka interrupted, a ball of sparks appearing in one hand. “‘Cause everything you just said sounds really illegal.”
Kanzaki’s eyes focused on the #3. “You’re in over your head, esper. Back off.”
Misaka’s right eye twitched. “‘O-over my head’?” She bared her teeth, sparks starting to jump between her bangs. “Why don’t you try me on for real?!”
“Uh, hey, princess?” Rainbow interrupted. “Can’t you just put the sun back yourself?”
Celestia’s eyes dropped to the ground, and Nightmare Moon let out another laugh. “Foolish girl. If she could force the day when I did not wish it, what would be the point of confronting me to begin with, all those years ago?”
She bared her fangs. “As long as I live, you will not see another day.”
Stiyl’s face hardened.
“But why?”
Everyone’s head turned to face her, and Twilight realised that she’d spoken out loud.
“‘Why?’” Nightmare Moon mocked her. “You opposed me from the start, and you do not even know why I do what I do?”
“I… I…” Twilight breathed in deeply, exhaling as much of her tension as she could. There was no turning back now. “Don’t you know anything about the sun?” She demanded. “Do you want to be queen of a frozen wasteland?”
“Don’ bother, sugarcube.” Applejack spoke up. “Ah already tried tha’. She just said there’s only one person she cares about.”
What?
But that didn’t make sense! Nightmare Moon wanted to usurp her sister! I know that, because it was in…
…
…come to think about it, Twilight had read about Nightmare Moon in two different books.
One had contained the legend of Nightmare Moon’s defeat, and one had contained the legend of her return.
The second one had turned out to be true, so Twilight hadn’t given any further thought to it. Obviously, the legends were true. End of story.
But why would all of the legends be true?
Hadn’t Twilight been discussing with Applejack, just before everything had gotten crazy, about how the story of Nightmare Moon’s defeat should have been history, not legend?
What…
What if the legend of Nightmare Moon’s defeat was just that: a legend? Myth, made up after the fact in an attempt to explain the events with only the knowledge of its aftermath?
If that was the case, that changed everything. Fundamental assumptions about Nightmare Moon’s motivations were invalidated. Twilight would no longer have cause to believe that Nightmare Moon was dooming the world out of jealousy for her sister.
And there was another thing, although no one had yet figured it out.
Nightmare Moon had been taken out of context. The world she had launched her crusade in ran under different assumptions and rules than this one. Given that, it would be more surprising if her motivations hadn’t changed.
In one context, the production of food and management of weather were both run with magic. The daytime was a luxury, not a necessity. That wasn’t the case in this one. Here, solar energy was the root of all life on the planet.
When performed in this context, extinguishing the sun was not the action of a ruler seizing power.
But Nightmare Moon had done so anyway.
So if becoming a ruler wasn’t what Nightmare Moon wanted, what outcome was she after?
What did Twilight know for sure?