Level Eighteen: BOSS BATTLE
Merging consciousness across the planes is a nasty undertaking. Most people assume it’s a contest of wills, that simply being more stubborn and steadfast will give them all the control they need. These people quickly lose. For there is one major commonality across all the planes, one binding need that weaves a dangerous thread through every consciousness. That is hunger.
You see, it’s impossible to overpower the mind of a Beast through sheer force of will, because it, in essence, is nothing but basic instinct. Instinct that resonates with the human mind on such a dangerous level as to be contagious, infectious even. While the human is busy preparing for mental combat on the plane of mental awareness, their subconscious is completely unguarded, and losing fast. Most don’t even realize what’s going on, even after they’ve lost, because their own desires are corrupted underneath them. The surge of power they feel from the Beast assuming control of their base instincts is usually falsely attributed to them declaring a win, and so they stop fighting.
Which is when they lose the rest of their minds.
“EEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAT!” the monster bellowed, the force of sound crashing forward like a tidal wave, bearing down on their ears and minds as if someone had upped the cabin pressure to eleven.
“You guys KNOW this monster?!” Aria shrieked, getting back on her feet. “I thought it was like, something from out of time and space or whatever?! This thing’s a PRINCIPAL?!”
Sunset pulled back towards the stage. “Yes and no. The monster part is new. Well, mostly. It’s a long story.”
“Less talk more rock!” Rubble barked, unpinning a phosphorous grenade and chucking it at the overlarge target. Hitting it wasn’t the problem. Hitting it hard enough was. The grenade met, ignited and successfully burned a rather disappointingly small patch of flesh. Rubble blinked at it. “Ok, little more rocked than that.”
“I found the cupcakes!” Pinkie shouted, wheeling in a large catering cart full of well-decorated pink pastries.
Adagio rolled her eyes while Aria shouted over her shoulder, “I don’t think that’s what it’s hungry for, you moron!” Sonata looked back and forth between Pinkie and the Beast in confusion.
“TOO BAD!” Pinkie yelled back, and started tossing cakes like a semi-auto trebuchet.
Rubble had just enough brain power set aside, not being taken up by his standard fighting instincts, to recognize a dangerous combination when he saw one. He turned tail and ran from the monster, crashing into Spooks and Aria and dragging them to the ground. “FLOOR!” he yelled, as Dusty rolled a table in front of them. Treble had found his own overturned table, and dragged Adagio and Fluttershy behind it.
The Sirens all protested loudly at the manhandling, until the first explosion went off. Then the next. Each cake that landed lasted a split second before it detonated, taking large chunks out of the creature. Some severed arms, others left large holes where the eyes were. One even managed to punch a hole in the muscly trunk connecting Cinch to the rest of the monstrosity.
Which then launched its protest. As the holes filled in, almost as fast as Pinkie was making them, two massive trunks of muscle burst forth from the main mass, landing on the floor with loud cracks as the remaining planks gave way to the added weight and pressure. Soon enough, Pinkie had run out of munitions, giving the creature all the breathing room it needed to pull itself forward. The trunks clenched and flexed as they moved to support the weight of the creature, and soon it was standing upright on its newly-formed legs.
Although rightly disturbed by this development, Adagio was much more interested in Pinkie Pie. “Sine when the hell can you do that?!”
“Since I learned how to do THIS,” Applejack answered for her, grabbing the beast by its new leg and heaving it forward like a log toss. Still unused to balancing on two appendages, the Cinch-Beast lost its “footing” rather easily, landing with a reverberating thud on the floor. It roared in pain at the impact, and the multitude of splinters as loose floorboards shattered under the impact. “Whoo-ee!” AJ declared, smiling proudly.
For about two seconds. Her smile disappeared when the creature’s mass shifted and roiled, the legs inverting themselves and gathering itself upright again. What was left of Cinch focused its attention on Applejack, and stomped towards her. At least, it would have, had Applejack still been there. Rainbow had since collected her and the rest of her friends, gathering them all in a big circle.
Treble blinked as he noticed Fluttershy wasn’t next to him anymore. “Natch,” he grumbled, helping Adagio to her feet. He glared at the Beast as it acquired a new target, and his eyes widened in abject terror as he noticed something awful about it.
Adagio took a step back. “That’s not a good look for you. What is it?”
Wordlessly, he pointed to a particular spot on what would now be considered the creature’s belly. As the flesh rolled and shifted, Adagio noticed a strange shape on the surface, but she couldn’t recognize it. It was just out of sight, and there were more like it. It was- there! “Oh… my god. Is that a face?!”
Treble nodded, slowly closing his mouth and swallowing hard. “Rubble,” he called in a weak voice, strangled with fear. “RUBBLE!” he tried again.
That one worked. “WHAT?!”
“The… the people it eats! They’re still alive inside that thing!” Treble explained, recoiling back a few steps.
Rubble squinted impatiently at the creature, which was distracted with picking a target now that no one was currently throwing painful things at it. Twilight had since lost her telekinetic grip on the creature after Pinkie’s assault, which Rarity had dropped the shield for. Both were currently feeling the effects of long-term overuse, leaning on each other just to keep upright. “God damn,” Rubble groaned, finally seeing what DT and Adagio had. “That’s just wrong,” he groaned, his chest dry-heaving as he tried not to think about it too hard.
Then Spooks spoke up. “Um, not to be a total buzzkill, but I have an idea,” he said simply, peeking over the table he and Aria were still hiding behind. Dusty had since stood up and was rummaging around for spare weapons.
The entire room looked at him, and shouted at once, “AND?!”
Which seemed to be the distraction the Beast was waiting for. As the teens turned their attention away, it charged for the one person off on his own: Dusty. Who turned around just in time to duck under its feet as it crashed into the frame of the closet he was digging through. “If you have a plan fuckin say it already!” he shouted, running across the room. The beast inverted itself, it’s legs twisting on the spot. Cinch’s face emerged from the back of her “head”, and it roared after him.
The wispy boy continued. “You girls said that the Elements separated whoever you used them on from whatever magic they were using, right?”
The girls looked to each other, trying to find the logic in his question, when Rarity answered weakly, “Um, yes? But I’m not sure what that has to do with anything...”
“Well,” Bones continued, “Maybe it can separate the Beast from the people it ate. I mean, they’re still alive in there.”
Sonata gave him a weird look. “You seem awfully calm and collected for someone who’s about to die.”
Sunset threw up her hands. “THANK YOU!”
“Oh, that’s ok. I’m just in shock. I’ll probably get out one or two more sentences before I pass ohthereitgoes-*” he finished quickly, his eyes rolling back in their sockets as he crumpled in exhaustion and fear to the floor.
Treble nodded glumly. “Yup, that’s about right.” He looked over at the girls, then at the beast, and finally, took a deep breath. “As much as I hate to say it, he’s right. Your Magic Rainbow Skybeam thing might be ebough to break that connection. At least we can weaken it.”
Dusty groaned as he dodged under the beast again. “MAN. I was really hoping to avoid that this time!” He skated over to the pile of thermite bricks, his wheel the only thing giving him distance over the creature’s long strides. Gathering them in the bag as quickly as he could, he wheeled a circle around the creature, and joined up with Treble and Dagi.
“Why is it such a big deal, anyways? We save the world all the time with that thing!” Rainbow yelled back.
With all the shouting, and running around, the Beast had grown confused, searching for a target again. Even being as huge as it was, a good ten feet tall or more, it could still only be in one place at a time for the time being. So it again settled on the smallest group, Aria and an unconscious Spooks (Sonata had taken the opportunity to hide behind the Rainbooms). Rubble saw the creature surge forward, and leapt halfway across the room to grab Spooks by the collar and drag him out of the way, as a large meaty trunk of a leg met the floor where he once was. Aria had no problems diving out of the way now, her faculties mostly restored. She helped Rubble haul Spooks onto his shoulder, and they ran sideways away from the beast, who was now crashing through the table they had used as shelter.
Dusty sighed heavily. “Because the last time I was anywhere near that laser thing I didn’t poop for a week!”
The Rainbooms met this declaration with silence. Well, mostly. “Actually, yeah,” Sunset agreed. “That happened to me, too, after the Fall Formal. Really uncomfortable.”
The rest of the room murmured their agreement, some more loudly than others. “Yeah, what the hell, guys?!” Aria barked. “Put like, a warning label or something on it! I was colorblind for a month afterward!”
Rubble groaned. “Don’t remind me. Treble switched my hat and coat for a bright pink camo pattern that whole first week. I only noticed when I realized my jacket was missing some holes.”
Cinch-Beast roared over the conversation, and charged after Treble and his group, who scattered. Scampering around it’s huge legs like mice, the monster twisted itself around trying just to reach one of them. Soon, they’d gathered up Rubble and Aria (with Spooks in tow), and huddled all together with the rest of the group.
Applejack raised a concerned eyebrow. “Is it really all that bad?”
Twilight mumbled something, staring at the ground.
“What was that, dear?” Rarity asked, still holding her up.
“When you guys hit me with it my period was late by three weeks. It completely reset my cycle,” she explained, blushing deeply.
All the girls in the group flinched. “Not cool,” Rainbow murmured. “But I mean, how are we going to save all the people trapped in that… thing?”
Dusty rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say don’t do it. I just said it was going to SUCK.”
Sunset nodded her agreement. “He’s right. We don’t have a lot of options left. And besides, it’s our duty to save as many as we can.”
The girls all gathered together, joining hands, while the Sirens and the boys scooted out into the open lawn, trying to get as far away from the side effects as possible without totally abandoning their friends. The Beast saw the smaller group retreating, and took the opportunity to chase after them, into the open.
Which is exactly what the Rainbooms needed it to do, as it gave them time to put together enough power. They floated into the air, hands joined together, as multicolored light and magic radiated from them like heat. Higher and higher they rose, until they were all but a crown of radiance that would have fit nicely on the Beast’s shoulders. It turned a moment too late, sensing the mighty surge of power growing behind it, and lunged forward.
Only to be met with the crashing tide of Harmony magic that erupted from the Rainbooms, and washed over the creature as if it had caught fire. It screamed horribly, in many voices at once, falling to the floor. Soon, the room was too bright to make out anything but silhouettes, as the monstrous shape of the creature gave way to the human forms of the people it had eaten. They fell to the floor like heavy rain, groans of pain and confusion filling the air as the light receded back into its casters.
The girls floated back to the ground, gently, as if on wings of angels, and saw the large crowd of adults, teens, and cultists laying across the broken gym floor. Cheering loudly to themselves, they all traded hugs, soon joined by Sonata and Adagio.
“You guys are the coolest!” Sonata cheered, as Pinkie hugged her back.
Sunset groaned. “Adagio, you can stop hugging me now.”
“No.”
“But-”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Uh, guys?!” Treble yelled in panic. The group turned to him as he pointed a finger at the crowd. They followed his gaze and gesture, in time to see a single person stand up amidst the group of fallen people.
Except it wasn’t a person. Not in any real sense of the word. It stood on two feet, had two arms, and a head, but that’s where the similarities ended. Its sometimes bald head opened and closed in random intervals and in random spots as hungry mouths filled with rows of jagged teeth fought for space amongst each other. Eyes with no lids glided across its torso like marbles rolling around on the floor, shaking and staring wildly at all they could see, twitching in place and scurrying across the body in dizzying patterns. Even its arms and legs were horrible facsimiles, as the upper and lower parts of its arms were simply layers upon layers of hands gripping each other, fused in random and disgusting places, reaching and flexing in waves of movement, while its legs were twisted, broken things, bending in wrong angles at random intervals, as toes and ankles jutted out from the joints and blank spaces like sick growths.
“Holy shit,” Rubble said quietly.
Dusty was about to voice his rather sarcastic agreement, when he noticed Rubble wasn’t even looking at the creature. He was looking at the dizzy, terrified masses writhing around on the ground. Of all the cultists, the adults and teens, and even the principal, not one of them had eyes, mouths, hands or feet.
“Oh, fuck me,” Dusty said in a voice little more than a whisper.
Then the beast spoke, in a dozen disharmonious voices fighting to be heard over each other. “hELl0 (h|ldrEN.”