Angel vs. Abomination!
Sunset gripped the cowering man by the collar. "where is it?" she asked; one fist drawn back, and ready to punch. "...Stop resisting, and we will be merciful..."
"Blow me, Bitch!!" he barked.
Sunset sighed, her frustration vented, now she needed to stop toying with them... "Tell me, or I will simply tear this ship apart untill i find it..."
The Pirate suddenly seemed to enbolden. "Hah! Joke's on you lady!" he barked. "The longer you waste time toolin' around with us, the longer the Captain has to demolish your little resistance fleet!"
Sunset glared at the man. "Tear the ship apart it is, then..." she said coldly before slamming her flame infused fist into the man's face, sending him flying into the wall.
<How goes the search, Shimmy?> Adena's voice chirped over the comm.
"...sigh... I could use some help, it's like a maze down here..." she shot back warily.
<...just keep going. We'll be down there helping in just a minute here...> Bula hissed in her gravelly voice.
Sunset walked back into the frustrating hallway and charged down to another unopened door, blasting it down with a golden fireball.
.......................................Ponyville Castle.................................
Mist Whisper sat in silence; Twilight and her friends watched her with baited breath. Princess Celestia was also present. "...That is very high level magic..." she finally said, having heard in very intimate detail about the events that had transpired leading up to her vision... "This magic was originally designed to be one way... for the purpose of banishing dark entities that were too dangerous to keep in this plane..."
"...Then why not just banish said darkness to Tartarus?" Applejack asked, a little confused.
Mist Whisper regarded the earth pony for a moment. "...were it that simple." she said flatly. "...Tartarus is what we call a "demensional nexus". it's very existance bleeds an unstable magic that, in theory, one pony can use to open a gate way to another world..."
"...You mean to say, that Starswirl the bearded..." Celestia cut in, "...drew upon this unstable power of Tartarus in order to banish the Sirens?" at this question, all eyes were on the foreign unicorn.
"...Correct." she said. "...How he managed to master it to the degree that he was able to implant it into a mirror, however, is beyond me." she explained. "...he left no record of his exploits in my country that we have any knowledge of..."
Twilight smiled hopefully. "We have that mirror here in this castle... would that help at all?"
Mist whisper's eyes went wide. "You mean... you have that very mirror here?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes!" she practically cheered. "...and I'm sure that if we combine your knowledge of warp gate magic and our knowledge of Starswirl's magics, then we could possibly reverse engineer the magic and figure out where our missing friends went!"
The shrine mare smiled, but only for a moment. "...perhaps, but that's only half the problem..." she said as she stood back up and her horn began to glow. "...I'm going to show all of you something, and I want you to tell me what you think you see..."
much like when Princess Luna used her magic to project her memories before, the room around them seemed to shimmer and warp. replaced with a seemingly endless expanse of what looked like the night sky... "It looks like the sky at night time..." Fluttershy observed.
"Yes..." Mist whisper nodded. "...Now, imagine that each and every one of those "stars" is in fact, another universe just like this one but with minute differences."
"It's own plain of existance?!" Twilight asked, her mouth agape. "...you mean... Haycart's 'Many worlds theory' is real?!"
"...More real then Haycart himself ever would have guessed." the voice of Discord cut through the illusion as he seemed to insert himself into it. the chaos lord regarded the new mare with a smile. "...Excellent analogy, by the way... allow me to just make a teensy little update to your little map..."
Rainbow dash, remembering their last talk with him glared at the draconeques. "...If you knew all of that, then why didn't you say anything before?!" she demanded.
Discord arched an eyebrow at the pegasus. "...I'm getting to that..." he said, his smile dissappearing, and demeanor changing completely to an air of all business and no nonsense. He clapped his paw and talons together and pulled them apart slowly. As he did so, their view seemed to zoom in to a small cluster of 'stars'. "I've been searching nonstop for three days now, and i've only managed to cover these areas." he said, snapping his talons and several of these stars began to blink red.
"Just those?!" Rainbow gawked. "...but...but-"
Discord continued, cutting her off. he snapped his talons once more several of them began blinking blue. "...These worlds are all quite similar to ours, but each with their own little twist, Others have VERY different...well...differences."
he snapped again, and another group of them turned purple. "These ones are like the world beyond the mirror that Twilight and Sunset went to; again each one having its own differences."
He zoomed in again to another star that hadn't been highlighted yet. this one begain shimmering in a rainbow of different colors. "...We are here." he explained. "...really take this in, now. they could have been shunted into any one of these Tens of thousands of MILLIONs of different universes." Discord went silent to allow the ponies in the room to process what he had just explained.
Twilight felt her heart sink a little. "Are you serious?" she asked.
Discord looked down at her sadly. "...and that's asuming that they all went to the same place. they very well could have been separated and scattered throughout the multiverse."
Mist Whisper nodded. "indeed... the magic that this 'warp gate' magic is based on, was never studied to the degree that one could track where the subject was shunted." she continued. "It was intended to be used on terrible evils that were shunted away to some other universe dictated by random chance; How Starswirl or even Haycart managed as well as they did is baffling."
Applejack nodded in understanding. "So what ye'r sayin' is, this magic was made to be some kind of interdimensional garbage disposal?" she asked, earning a nod from the foreign unicorn. "meant to be one way, so they never really put any thought into how to track where the problem goes once it's booted?"
"Correct." Mist Whisper nodded.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Discord stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Unfortunatly, all we can do right now is keep searching; I think i have found a trail to follow, but that could still take quite some time..."
"...well, it's something at least..." Twilight said uneasily. "...keep us posted, will you?"
Discord smiled and gave a dramatic nod. "That, I can do; Good hunting ladies!" he declaired before vanishing with a flash and a pop.
Applejack scratched the back of her head awkwardly. "Uh... back to the grind stone then, I guess?" Affirmations from everypony in the room set all of them back to work.
...............................................Coral Bay: The Abomination...............................
-Fwoosh!!!- -Booom!!! another fireball, another door blasted down. Sunset glared through the newly opened door to see two new people. One seemed to be Captain Kota; a large man who's appearance fit into the stereotypical pirate cliche's with a few modern touches. A scragly beard, tattered long coat, what seemed like a steam-punk style peg leg... he even had a black eyepatch. in his hands were some nasty looking weapons as well, in one, a large curved sword; in the other, what looked like some kind of ramshakle four barrel shotgun... definitely a nasty customer.
The second seemed much more unassuming. a young man, about her age, with messy dark hair. he two, had a long coat, but seemed almost stately or elegant. Bergundy with shiny golden trim, like a much newer version of Captain Craven's. Apart from that, nothing really all that remarkable about him appearance wise, but he was clearly the one controlling the gollums.
the wizard smuggly looked over to the pirate. "...it seems your crew isn't as tough as you made them-"
"Finish that sentence and I'll carve out your tongue and feed it to the sharks, boy!" Kota growled.
"Face the facts, Captain. Even with the game rigged in your favor, with all the road blocks you've paid off the authorities to set up, they're going to tear you down; Drogar's gollum control lacrima has already been taken offline!"
what? Sunset's eyes went wide. "Did you say 'payed off'?" Sunset barked, making the aged pirate to glare dangerously at the young man next to him.
The young wizard stared defiantly back at the pirate as he backed away from him, placing himself equal distance between Kota and Sunset. "Oh, yes... a royal navy fleet Commander and a Rune knight Commander if memory serves; of course there are others, I'm sure." he said smuggly. then his face brightened as if remembering something important. "Oh, yes! there's also a member of the magic counsil. Not sure who, though..."
--BEEEP!!!--
One of the lights on the control lacrima console flashed red and turned off, making Kota spin on his heel and look before turning a cruel smile to the yet unnamed wizard. "...Well, Looks like your lovely little lady Captain hasn't fared too well either, Hahahaha!" he taunted with a cackle. "Too bad, Little Cedric!"
The wizard, named Cedric, apparently, snapped his gaze to the machine. and dashed towards it in a panic. "No nononononon-!"
--CRACK!!!--
Kota slammed the hand guard of his oversized Cutlass into the side of Cedric's head as he ran passed, making him stumble forward and crumble to the floor; out cold. "...You've both outlived your usefullness to me..." he said coldly before turning back to Sunset. "...and YOU have proven to be quite a thorn in my side in a remarkably short time..."
Sunset smirked. "Yeah, it's a particular talent I've picked up; throwing proverbial wrenches in the plans of people like you."
A humorless smile took over the captain's face. "Is that a fact?" he asked, getting a nod from the girl. Kota nodded himself with a thoughtful expression. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to break you of that habit won't we?" His dark smile returned. "There are three ways that this can play out..." Kota leaned back into the lacrima console and jabbed his sword into the floorboards at his feet. "...One..." he began. "...is you accept a generous litle gift to turn a blind eye to what's going on here, and be on your way..."
Sunset rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that one won't happen..." she shot back.
The pirate merely shrugged in response. "Two... ya know missy..." he said casually. "I could always use a wizard as powerful as you in my crew..."
'is this guy serious?!' Sunset thought incredulously.
"...I can see by the look on yer face that that one won't be flyin either..." he said, as though they were old friends talking about what they did last weekend; Sunset shook her head once more. "That leaves option number three, then..." he said, his cold smile never leaving his face. "...To put it simply young Missy... I kill you for the trouble you've caused me."
That's when a voice crackled in Sunset's ear. <This is Bailey!> the Bonbon lookalike announced with a thick accent. <The Grey Lady was empty 'cept for their Captain!>
"That explains why it apparently went down so easily..." Sunset muttered.
Kota's smile dissappeared. "what?"
<Yeah! they was gonna throw the fight from the beginning!> she confirmed. <She says that the only reason she aggreed to be part of this is because the gollum guy is her boyfriend and Kota is hodlin' him hostage!>
"yup; just found him. Kota clocked him in the head." Sunset looked back up at the pirate. "Sounds like the Grey Lady decided to throw their part of your plan, captain; they clearly had no intention of ever really helping you!"
The pirate leveled his shotgun at her and fired. "GUN MAGIC: OGRE SPRAY!!!"
--BOOOOM!!!--
the firey yellow spray of magic blasted her off her feet, sending her flying against the wall behind her.
--CRACK!!!--
The impact put an indented hole in the wall before she reverted back to her original form and clattered to the floor in agony. None of the shots broke the skin or drew blood as far as she could tell, but if she had ever been shot with a bean bag gun or rubber bullets, she'd imagine that this is what it would feel like... The impact left her completely winded.
Then came the numbness; her entire body hurt, but her torso especially. Sunset struggled up to her knees and found that the front of her shirt was shredded over her stomach, revealing some nasty bruises. Fighting through this combination of numbness and barely contained agony, she reached up to the damadged wall and grabbed on to the indented wood with her free hand while the othe held her bruised stomach tenderly, and tried to haul herself back to her feet.
Kota had a cruel smile on his face again. "Looks like yer somethin of a glass cannon, Missy." he taunted.
"Go to hell!!" Sunset choked out.
Kota chuckled as he slowly advanced towards her. "You first." he said coldly. he clipped his gun to his belt and hefted his large sword. "Ye have a name, Missy?"
Sunset was still hacking and wheezing to regain her breath. "...My name..." -cough!- -cough!- "...Is Sunset...Shimmer..." She glared up at him disdainfully. "...Of the Fairytail guild..." she righted her stance a little more as she slowly regained her stamina. "...I don't- urk!" she winced from the pain throbbing pain all over her body. "...I don't know why you're doing all this, and I don't care, but it ends today!"
"Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!" the pirate cackled with demented glee. "After all you've done, you find yourself broken and battered after a single shot. My crew is still fighting your little friends and the rest of my fleet is still fighting!" his grin almost inhumanly wide, even for a man as large as him. "Prey tell, my dear; Where is my disadvantage?!"
When Sunset couldn't answer imediately, Kota charged forward, blade in hand, ready to bring down he final strike. Sunset raised her hand and tried to summon her golden flames, but her coughing and wheezing made them fizzle out harmlessly. 'No! it can't end like this!' she shut her eyes and braced for the hit to come...
...but it didn't. "What?!" Kota's voice boomed throught the dark of her shut eyes. slowly she opened them.
"...Your disadvantage..." the voice of Bula came, not from the comm piece in her ear, but from right next to her. "...is that slowly and surely, we are outperforming and outnumbering you and your forces..." she said, her tone cold and flat. that baalful glare never leaving her face. Sunset could see the fiery glow of her eyes even passed the green aura of her skeletal spirit arm that she'd used to stop the blade dead in its tracks.
Sunset was gobsmacked. When had Bula caught up to her? How- it didn't matter! they needed a new plan! "Bula!" Sunset blurtted out in surprise.
"What, did he suckerpunch you?" the goth like girl asked, the tiniest hint of a smirk tugging at her features. "...Get your head back in the game, it's not over yet."
Kota Grinned. "Right you are little lady! Maybelle, bring our guests to the top deck!"
as if the whole thing had been planned, the newcomer had joined the fray; phasing through the wall behind them, delivering a swift punch to Bula's face before grabbing her hand and then diving for Sunset, grabbing her by the throat with her free hand, and phasing back through the wall. before they could even process what had happened, Bula was launched up in the air above the deck and landed hard with a thud. Sunset however, could finally get a look at their new attacker.
A girl about her age held he in a chokehold. her clothes looked like prisoners rags, heavy shackles were clamped aound her wrists, ankles and neck with long rattling chains dangling from each one. her long messy grey hair draped over the right side of her face, but that which was visible was further obscured by a stained and dirty blindfold covering her eyes, and a gag in her mouth. she uttered an unnatural hiss that sounded more like the anguished gasp of a wraith or shade... like she was suffocating...