Chapter Ninety Nine
This shouldn't be happening.
No, this couldn't be happening!
That was Nightmare Moon's evaluation of this entire situation she currently found herself in. This was a mistake, it had to be a mistake!
She'd been feasting and gorging herself upon the fear of these ponies as they'd been running around in sheer terror not even a scant thirty minutes ago. And yet now she was being ganged up on by those same ponies, as they beat the crap out of her!
She never should've turned around when she heard the rhyming of that accursed zebra witch, leaving her face vulnerable to whatever powder she'd brought with her. She couldn't mount a proper defense in her current state!
Making matters all the worse was the fact she didn't have anyone to blame but herself for this current mess she was in. She hadn't needed to go after Zecora, as she'd posed no threat to her plans. But she'd been in a foul mood on that night due to things not going according to her plans, and she'd needed somepony -anypony- to take her anger out on to make herself feel better. The zebra had simply been unfortunate enough to draw the short stick on that particular night.
In hindsight, she might've gone just a bit overboard with the degree of suffering and malice she'd inflicted at the time. But it was too late to do anything about that now.
Through some truly monumental efforts on her part, she managed to overcome the assault and force herself back up onto her hooves once again, but that didn't seem to be deterring them one bit. Instead they just started hitting her harder.
she lashed out, physically swiping, swinging, and kicking at everything in her immediate vicinity to swat them away like gnats, but her inability to see through the burning in her eyes made getting a successful hit in difficult, if not outright impossible. She was just swinging blindly.
Like it or not, she was going to have to resort to blanketing the entire area in an offensive magical field to target all of them in an indiscriminate fashion. It was a wasteful tactic, as well as incredibly gauche, but her patience was wearing incredibly thin and she no longer cared about such trivialities.
"Oh no ya don't!"
Something landed hard on her back before she could actually cast her magic. Something that was heavy, and loud, and obnoxious, and was one Vinyl Scratch who was currently straddling her along her spine like some sort of perverse carnival ride.
If she weren't in the midst of a vicious coughing/hiccuping cycle that showed no signs of ending, she'd have something fitting to say to the brash entertainer. Instead she'd just have to settle for administering an indiscriminate beating.
Except it didn't come. No magic, just an intense, painful sensation all around her horn that made the itching even worse! What had she done to her!?
She didn't have long to contemplate the matter before Vinyl socked her in the back of the head with a rabbit punch, before disappearing as if she'd teleported out. No sooner had she left, did others step in to take her place. Others she couldn't identify, but who would be made to regret their decision to be brave against her!
Big Macintosh was a stallion of few words, as he'd never really needed to be otherwise. Oftentimes it was just easier that way, letting others carry the conversation themselves, while he focused on other matters at hoof.
In this particular case, that matter was being a good big brother, and paying Nightmare Moon back for all of the torment and suffering she'd inflicted on his little sisters. With interest. He hadn't been able to do that back in Ponyville with how things had unfolded. But now that he had the opportunity, he was going to be making the most of it. Zecora might've been the one to actually organize them into action, but he'd been at the forefront of the actual assault once the opening had been presented, hitting Nightmare Moon head on with enough force to fell a mighty tree and rattle various internal organs.
The only problem with actually paying Nightmare Moon back, was that everypony had the same idea. Zecora's mobilization efforts had been a little too successful for his tastes, as he had to exercise great caution in not hurting anyone else while trying to fulfill his elder sibling duties. So either they were going to have to share and take turns with her, or they'd have to fight each other just to get their turn in. Either way it wasn't a favorable prospect, but what choice did they really have?
He watched as the twins slugged her in the face simultaneously, knocking her square on her butt. Then Blossomforth went about demonstrating her unnatural flexibility by grabbing Nightmare Moon from behind, and subjecting her to a Germaneian suplex that resulted in her head being slammed against the ground. All the while managing to avoid the same fate herself due to the differences in their respective heights.
That right there was mighty impressive in its own right. Ridiculous, but still nonetheless impressive. It also would've been the perfect opportunity for him to step in and deliver some older brother justice to the nag, if not for the fact that he could see Ditzy getting into position to... wait, was that a kitchen sink she had in her hooves?
At the point of impact he realized, yes, it was indeed a kitchen sink. Faucet and supply lines and all, dropped right on top of Nightmare Moon's currently prone form where it shattered. Blossomforth barely had time to even get out of the way before the impact occurred, leading him to wonder whether it'd been planned out or not.
He hadn't seen for himself who brought it into play, but a toilet was the next thing to be dropped from a high point onto Nightmare Moon, shattering much like the sink had.
In light of such developments, he concluded that perhaps it would be best to hold back and not simply rush into the heat of battle just yet. Lest somepony had actually brought a piano along to donate towards the cause.
"Twi'?"
"Yes, Applejack?"
"Is there any chance this is actually gonna work?"
Twilight remained silent, uncertain as she and the others watched Vinyl holding on for dear life to avoid being bucked right back off again, while at the same time going about hastily assembling a crown consisting of stainless steel hose clamps and numerous roofing nails atop Nightmare Moon's horn, and tightening everything into place to prevent it from coming loose.
She winced internally as she evaluated the crude contraption further. Both points and heads were being firmly pressed/driven into the outer keratin layer, much as Rainbow Dash's teeth had been previously. She could only speculate on why Nightmare Moon wasn't currently screaming and writhing in agony on the ground, but right now it wasn't important as the others were keeping her quite busy with smacking/kicking her around. That, and her sneezing/coughing fit was showing no signs of slowing down in the immediate future.
The main concern was that Nightmare Moon's magic was kept in check; her being in agony was nothing more than a nice -but unimportant- bonus. So long as the restraint remained fixed in place on her horn and didn't wind up becoming dislodged for one reason or another, it should be doable. The restraint, combined with all the other distractions going on, should -in theory at least- serve their intended purpose of keeping Nightmare Moon too unbalanced to counterattack.
"If we can keep from killing her prematurely, then I think so," she replied with cautious optimism, hoping that she wasn't unintentionally jinxing the situation by voicing her thoughts aloud. "We win when Ulquiorra kills her for good. All we really need to do in the meantime is just keep her busy until then. Really, we could just hogtie her and wait it out. But I really don't think we can talk this crowd into going along with that."
The pessimism in Twilight's evaluation of the unruly crowd was well emphasized as both Flitter and Cloud Chaser delivered a synchronized double flying kick to Nightmare Moon's frame to stagger her further. She'd been front and center since the start of Nightmare Moon's attack against the greater half of Ponyville, and had heard -and documented- their accounts of what each and every single one of them had been put through. There was no way they were going to deescalate on their own after all of the sadistic torture they'd been forced to suffer through.
For better or worse, they were likely going to keep this up until whatever blood lust that had possessed them had been sufficiently sated.
"I think, so long as they don't try and drag her off the ground, we'll be alright for the time being," she continued.
Zecora had been mostly silent since her arrival, opting to let the others have at it as they pleased. But Twilight's current evaluation had been enough to pique her curiosity enough to warrant speaking up.
"I am sorry, I do not understand. What possible difference could it make if they pound her in the air or on the land?"
"Well it's just a theory really, based on what we've witnessed so far. But before you all showed up, Rainbow Dash was doing quite well against Nightmare Moon while engaged in aerial combat-"
"I kicked her ass," Rainbow Dash interrupted.
"-but when she was on the ground, that suddenly ceased. And she managed to weather and shrug off basically every gemstone-related assault Rarity hit her with prior to your arrival, also while on the ground. I can't verify it, but I think that when she's on the ground, she's using her earth pony magic to physically enhance and strengthen her form against damage - like an organic armor. I think at the moment that might work to our advantage."
"I still do not understand," Zecora stated flatly.
In response, Pinkie took the opportunity to bring Zecora up to speed with a -relatively- brief overview of what they'd learned so far in their engagement against Nightmare Moon, from her regenerative capabilities and Twilight's initial theory relating to such, to the observations of her physical structure being partially composed of fog, and was thus vulnerable to pegasus hooves when in the air, away from the strengthening qualities of the earth pony magic that'd been protecting her up to now.
At times it looked like Zecora's eyes were spinning in confusion, and it was uncertain if the resulting nod was from true understanding, or if she was merely trying to shut Pinkie up from delivering further time-consuming exposition on the matter.
From what Zecora could comprehend, the gist was that so long as Nightmare Moon remained in contact with the ground, none of the pegasi currently letting her have it should be able to -in theory- deliver a fatal injury that would potentially get her out of the restraint. They had gone the long way around in everyone getting on the same page, but at least they'd managed to get there. And now being aware of this information, she knew how to plan and coordinate accordingly.
It also made her feel somewhat better about how things had transpired. Other than the initial assault and resulting impairment of Nightmare Moon's senses, she really hadn't been able to contribute any in this matter. She might've mustered the citizens of Ponyville and motivated them to taken the battle to Nightmare Moon rather than waiting on her to return, but beyond that there was little for her to really do other than just sit and watch.
Had she not been driven from her hut in the middle of the night, things could've transpired quite differently. Had she received word that Nightmare Moon had returned, she would've been able to prepare and bring her most potent concoctions with her; not the least of which was one that would've turned the dark alicorn's lungs to solid stone. But if she'd done that, based on what they were saying, she would've wound up making matters far worse than better.
In some sort of weird and twisted way, perhaps it'd been for the best that she'd been so ill-prepared for something such as this.
Still, having to sit this out and simply watch as others did what she simply couldn't, really sucked.
And then the kitchen sink dropped on Nightmare Moon, causing them all to flinch. Perhaps staying put really was the better alternative.
Lyra was anxiously shifting back and forth from one hoof to another, alternating between not wanting to be here, and desperately looking for an opening to show Nightmare Moon what she was made of. Her horn was brimming with the magic necessary for casting the advanced fire spells she'd been practicing for weeks, and she was both itching and burning to finally let loose with the fruits of her labors. If it weren't for everypony else being in the way right now, she'd be trying to seer Nightmare Moon's face right off!
But she couldn't do that right now! There were way too many ponies in the way to let loose with that kind of righteous violence at the moment. Ponies like Big Macintosh and Bulk Biceps who had gotten together to force Nightmare Moon into an upright sitting position on her hind legs from behind, while restraining her forelegs as far out to the side as was possible. Which left her vulnerable as Thunderlane and Raindrops were double-teaming and subjecting her to repeated gut blows to keep her from being able to catch her breath.
She hadn't wanted to, but she'd wound up becoming engrossed in watching her neighbors going at it with such wanton abandonment.
So engrossed, she screamed and nearly peed when she felt a hoof tapping her on her pasterns, before spinning around quickly to find Colgate standing there.
"Jeez, a little warning next time," she grumbled, her heart still beating from the scare. "What?"
"Am I seeing things? Or are Vinyl's restraints starting to glow?" Colgate asked.
Curious, Lyra turned back around to try and see what her friend was talking about. Under cover of darkness with scant lighting it was really hard to tell just what was going on. Squinting hard, she tried to tune everything out and focus exclusively on the nails and clamps the DJ had placed on Nightmare Moon's horn to constrain her magic.
It was hard to make out under the present conditions. But if she strained really hard, it looked like the hardware was indeed giving off a dull red glow in the night. And if her eyes weren't actually playing tricks on her, it looked like it was slowly getting brighter.
If she had to guess, Vinyl's efforts weren't going to last them much longer if they didn't do something fast.
"It's too much heat," she surmised, "we have to do something to slow her down before she burns through those restraints, or we're all dead."
"But how?" Colgate asked.
Lyra turned back to look at her. "We need ice, we need lots of ice, and we need it right now. You learned the freezing spell when Twilight was teaching those self-defense classes; see if you can cool the restraints down before the melts her way out of them!"
"Look, just because I learned the spell doesn't mean I know how to use it in every situation," Colgate replied and shook her head. "She's surrounded right now. If I tried I could hit the others and they'd be frozen. I don't have that level of control over it."
Lyra could only groan and facehoof. Was she seriously the only one who actually practiced what they'd learned in those classes!?
"Then get in close and just point blank it! We need to-"
"GET AWAY FROM ME!”
First the piercing shriek that assaulted their ears.
Then the wave of all-encompassing sphere of darkness that exploded outward, engulfing all of them and sending them flying with the following shock wave.
Then the pain. So, so very much pain everywhere for everyone...
What they'd been hit with, they didn't know and would chalk it up to "random dark magic thingie" once they got their bearings straight.
At the center of it all was Nightmare Moon, now free. Free from the restraints that'd been subduing her magic. Free from the assault from numerous other ponies. Free to decorporialize and recorporialize herself as needed, thus rendering her free from the inhibiting effects of whatever powder Zecora had hit her with. But perhaps most importantly, free to catch her breath once again, greedily sucking down lungfuls of air like an alcoholic would a bottle of wine.
But that freedom had come at a great cost, and it was one she'd all too freely paid due to the urgency of the situation. Driving the ponies back and healing herself, all back-to-back, had consumed far more of her magic than she'd been prepared to expend in such a short amount of time, leaving her feeling incredibly weakened and on the verge of collapsing where she stood. However that was easily rectified.
Despite the bravado of these ponies in coming to face her, she could smell that they were all still quite terrified; still ripe with fear. Them coming here to try and face her was as good as ordering takeout, and she wasted no time in going about absorbing it, just as she'd done when she'd stormed into Ponyville. Already she could feel the trembling in her frame ceasing. She felt rejuvenated and refreshed once again.
And then she felt a cinder block being smashed over the back of her skull.
She slowly turned her head in the direction of the impact and saw Big Macintosh standing there, looking rather displeased.
Well then. If he wanted to do things the hard way, she'd give him a reason to be displeased.
Spike didn't know if he was the first to recover, or maybe the last, or if anypony had gotten the number of the locomotive that'd run them over. All he knew was that he hurt, and he felt like he kinda wanted to hurl as he pushed himself back up.
His senses were a mess of disorientation as he unsteadily climbed back to his feet and tried to make sense of his surroundings and decipher what'd just happened. Looking around him, most everypony was still down and in no condition to get right back up; not from what he could see anyway. All he did see was Nightmare Moon standing tall.
But she wasn't exactly standing by herself. Big Macintosh was also standing back up, and currently engaged in trading physical blows with her in a back and forth manner. Not only that, but he appeared to be holding his own against her, even when tanking the solid blows she was landing. Really, neither one of them were making any effort to block or avoid the incoming blows, making it a question of who could tolerate the most pain.
Unfortunately it was Big Macintosh who went down first after one particularly hard blow was landed. And while he was still alive from what Spike could see, he didn't look like he was in any condition to get back up again anytime soon.
That might've been it for the strong stallion, right then and there, as he wouldn't be able to protect himself against further assault from Nightmare Moon in his current condition.
But he wasn't going to let that come to pass. He wasn't going to just stand by and let Nightmare Moon take anymore of his friends from him, or otherwise watch as more ponies got hurt. He pulled back and flung his hammer at her head, just as he'd done multiple times before. He didn't even care if it wouldn't kill her on impact, that didn't matter right now.
He found himself practically snout-to-snout with Nightmare Moon almost as soon as the hammer had left his claw. She must've seen what he was doing and teleported instantly, thus cutting him off from the hammer, and giving him no way to get it back.
What he wouldn't give for that auto-recall ability to actually be a thing right now. Because right now she looked way more imposing than she had any right to be.
"Too, too bad. You had one shot at being able to do something, and you wasted it," she stated mockingly as she smirked while staring him in the eyes.
Spike hadn't actually intended to claw Nightmare Moon across the snout, it just sort of happened. But she recoiled in pain and surprise at his claws digging into her face. And just like the original strike, he lunged for her.
Being without his hammer didn't change the fact that he was still a dragon, making his whole body a weapon. Claws that could tear through stone, sharp teeth paired with enough biting force to chew through solid diamond, scales that could withstand submersion in lava, and the ability to produce fire hot enough to melt solid iron at will, Nightmare Moon had nothing on him!
He didn't particularly care that his efforts wouldn't be enough to put Nightmare Moon down on their own, right now that just wasn't important. If all he could do was make her feel pain, then he was going to go for the gold in pain as he raked his claws across her face, ripping and tearing as he made her bleed.
He found himself flipped and slammed onto his back faster than he realized, the impact knocking the air right out of his lungs and leaving him coughing as he tried to rectify his unfortunate situation. Although that would probably go easier if he could've moved, rather than being pinned down by some as of yet unseen force on top of him.
Looking up at her as she towered over him, glaring angrily down at him with outright malice and hatred, he could see that he'd done more of a number on her than he'd thought in the heat of the moment. Her face was streaked with scratches and cuts to various depths, along her nose and even above her eyes.
He wasn't a Hollow. He wasn't an alicorn. He wasn't even a unicorn. But despite all of that, he'd still been able to make her bleed all on his own. That fact made him smirk back up at her, despite how she was trying to turn him into a pile of ash with just her stare alone.
"You're fucked," he stated defiantly.
Nightmare Moon snorted in response and kicked him in his side, forcing him to wince in pain as his bravado broke from the force of the impact.
"Just for that, you little fewmet, you're going to suffer more than any of your friends. They'll live long enough to wish they'd died on this night, but you? Whatever the afterlife holds for you, you'll never get to experience, because I'm going to swallow your soul!" she growled and opened her mouth wide, revealing the numerous sharp teeth contained within her gaping maw.
However her plans were cut short as she felt something crammed into her mouth, just short of reaching the back of her throat. Something hard and rigid, and off-white that extended past her muzzle. Something that turned out to be the forearm of the Espada who was currently standing directly before her.
Ulquiorra had returned to the fray.
Only then did she actually notice the sensation of heat forming in her mouth, and a teal green light just on the edge of her peripheral vision.
"Swallow this instead."
The destructive force of Ulquiorra's Cero being discharged was -largely- contained in Nightmare Moon's mouth, apart from a minor back blast that escaped out to the sides. But it had been more than enough to send her flying backwards, as well as shaking off whatever lingering disorienting effects of her magic remained on the ponies present, serving to jolt them back awake and responsive in very short order.
Most of them had the good sense to scatter upon realizing just what was going down. But not all of them.
"Do I even want to know what happened?" he asked, knowing full well the answer was that things had gone wrong.
"Prob'ly not," Applejack replied, now that she was back on her hooves again. "Things didn' work out, so we held the line. We got reinforcements, we held the line more. We even manages to kill 'er a few times, 'though it obviously didn' take."
Ulquiorra would admit, he was both surprised and impressed by the level of succinctness of Applejack's summation of what'd transpired during his absence. Short, straight to the point, and not bogged down with excessive details he simply didn't need.
He was also impressed that they'd managed to survive this long in his absence. Princess Luna was presently in a de-powered state similar to Princess Celestia. And if such had happened at the time of the latter's outburst while she'd been riding atop his back, they'd been on there own for a significantly long period of time, against an opponent who still vastly outclassed all of them. Granted, she was significantly weaker than previously, as he could feel such, but the gap between them and Nightmare Moon was still quite significant.
"Noted," he replied in an equally succinct manner.
By now Nightmare Moon was stirring from where she'd come to a stop from her Cero-assisted travel. The fact it hadn't been sufficient to completely vaporize her head was particularly disconcerting, as it demonstrated her innards were just as tough as her outsides. Apparently the inside of her mouth wasn't a weak spot to be exploited.
It was a small consolation prize when she retched and proceeded to vomit spectacularly right where she stood, all the while yielding a sound not too dissimilar from someone making a concerted effort to actually drown a bleating goat.
"Now would be a good time to leave," he stated further, fully aware that if they remained, their presence would only serve to hamper him further. Nightmare Moon had already demonstrated that she wouldn't hesitate to exploit others for her own benefit, and he was having none of that.
"You do not need to be telling us more than once," Luna replied as she quickly moved to address the others. "Everypony, we are leaving as of five minutes ago! Haul! Ass!"
"Nopony-" Nightmare Moon coughed as she finally straightened back up once again. "Nopony is leaving here! You saw fit to meddle, so you can all just stay right where you are and face the consequences of your own actions!"
If he were anyone else, Ulquiorra would've sighed tiredly at Nightmare Moon's statement. She had neither power nor authority to dictate what those who were present were going to do or otherwise not do. He briefly considered rebuking her and explaining this fact, but ultimately decided against such. It would be a waste of time and effort on his part; time and effort that could be better utilized killing her.
"Then we'll simply do this the hard way," he replied as he gripped the hilt of his zanpakutō and unsheathed it. He would put her down with a single strike, separating the top of her skull from the rest of her head, and render her dead before her nervous system even had sufficient time to process the pain signals.
He hadn't witnessed just what had served to sever his fingers from the rest of his hand. He'd only realized it had happened when Murciélago's hilt went flying out of his now open hand as he unsheathed it.
Had that actually just happened? Even he wasn't immune to disbelief, looking at the bloody stumps of what was left of his fingers in confirmation, as he tried to comprehend just what had happened.
But the disbelief was short-lived as he immediately refocused on what he knew; his zanpakutō was no longer under his direct control, and he needed to retrieve it.
"Looking for this?"
The search was short-lived, as he quickly found Murciélago presently held aloft in Nightmare Moon's magic, obviously in a blatant mocking fashion. Which was further emphasized by her wearing the cockiest, most arrogant smirk he could ever recall seeing, in either this or the other world.
Ignoring the screams and panic of the others around him, he lunged forward to reclaim his zanpakutō with his left hand while the fingers of his right regenerated, only for it to be moved just outside of his reach before his fingers could even brush the hilt.
And then the matter managed to get worse as Murciélago was sent flying far into the west, putting it well outside of his immediate reach.
Slowly, he turned his focus back on Nightmare Moon, whose grin only seemed to increase in terms of smugness.
"Do you honestly believe such a weak tactic will work? That I won't be able to retrieve my zanpakutō in short order?" he asked.
"Can you do that before I kill these ponies in your absence?" she asked in response.
...
So that had been her plan then. Put him in a position where he was forced to choose how he proceeded.
His intention had been to dispense with formalities, and go right to his released state in order to put Nightmare Moon down, both immediately and with the least amount of effort possible. But in order to do that, he needed Murciélago. But in order to retrieve Murciélago he would have to leave the ponies unprotected as he left the area. It wasn't that far away, at least not by his own standards, but it would still be an opening she would be ready and posed to exploit if he took the bait.
Regardless of how the matter was examined and analyzed, it appeared to be a no-win situation with the facts as they presently were. He was just going to have to go and do it the hard way then.
"Under different circumstances, I'd actually regard such a tactic as being respectable," he commented. Out of everything, it was possibly one of the most pragmatic approaches she'd taken in this entire mess. "I'll just kill you as is, and be done with it."
Ordinarily, considering what she was up against, such a statement might give Nightmare Moon reason to be concerned. But these weren't ordinary circumstances. She had scoured the minds of Celestia and other ponies to gather as much information on this monstrosity before her as possible when she recognized his true alpha predator status. Without his sword, the majority of his strength was simply inaccessible to him, putting him at a severe disadvantage. Obviously this statement of his was nothing more than a mere bluff, to try and shake her confidence.
Well, she had news for him, it wasn't going to work. This wasn't a game of poker, and his stone face wasn't going to assist him in this matter one bit.
He was up to something as he was trying to sell his bluff, forming a ball of teal green energy in the palm of his outstretched hand, making ready to utilize that stupid Cero attack of his again, despite earlier confirming the fact that it was useless against her.
And then he did something different and crushed the ball as it formed, causing it to explode out the top and bottom of his hand, forming what looked like one of his stupid lunar javelins, only shorter and closer to the size of his sword-
He practically teleported in front of her and nearly took her head right off in a single swing, stopped only by the timely summoning of her scythe to block the strike from actually landing. But the force behind that strike had nearly swatted her scythe right out of the way.
"You-" she grunted as she struggled to push back against him, "there wasn't anything like this in Celestia's memories! This isn't one of your attacks! How're you doing this!?"
"You assume far too much," Ulquiorra replied, his tone even as he pushed back against the scythe in an almost casual manner, yet still managing to make her lose ground. "But you're correct. It's a technique that belongs to Coyote Starrk, I merely learned it from him."
Nightmare Moon just growled furiously in response to the revelation. Not only did he have his own techniques, but apparently he could hide the knowledge of the techniques he'd learned from his companions. Who knew what other sorts of surprises he had to him!
"This is the first time I've ever actually had to use Colmillo," he continued.
"Well then I'm honored, as it'll also be your very last!" she shouted back.
"Perhaps so. But not in the way that you're thinking."
Nightmare Moon might've had no intention of taking the fight into the air, but a single strike from a shock wave-inducing swing of Ulquiorra's sword had put an end to that by sending her skyward, regardless of what she'd wanted. After which he'd wasted no time pursuing her, leaving the others far behind on the ground where they wouldn't be able to get involved further.
To those who didn't have the benefit of the thestral vision enchantment, the ensuing battle looked like little more than streaks of red and green flashing across the sky and repeatedly clashing against one another. But for most of them the aerial display was going unwitnessed, as they had far more pressing concerns to focus on at the moment; such as trying to focus on what Twilight was currently saying.
The gist of it, or at least what they could comprehend of it, was that they needed to help out in the search for Ulquiorra's sword. Which begged what seemed like the obvious question to many of them.
"Why?"
"I'm sorry?" Twilight asked, confused at her train of thought being broken.
"Why does he need us to find his sword?" Thunderlane asked, honestly not seeing what the big deal of it all was.
"Yeah," Flitter agreed, "I mean, it's just a dumb sword, right? He's got that magic sword he's using instead, and he's dominating."
The others were quick to follow in agreement, not understanding the importance of retrieving Ulquiorra's sword, or how it could possibly help him in this fight. And they were none too shy about sharing their opinion and confusion on the matter about why it was so important.
"It's not just a sword! It's a key!" Rainbow Dash spoke up, loudly, in order to quell the commotion of the others. "Right now Ulquiorra's operating at only twenty percent of what he can do. If he's going to take Nightmare Moon down permanently, he needs his zanpakutō to unlock and access the other eighty percent. Don't ask how, he just does."
There was still confusion, but at least that made more sense then simply looking blindly for what seemed like a simple sword lost in the middle of a dark forest. Now that they knew what the importance of it was, it was a different matter to tend to. Now it was one with actual, coherent purpose. Understanding that, they looked forward again, waiting for further instructions.
"Right," Twilight replied and nodded once she understood the situation was under control again. "As I was about to say, we know what we need to do, and we have a general idea of which direction to look. So spread out, find Murciélago, and bring it back to Ulquiorra as fast as possible."