//------------------------------//
// Battle of Chaos 
// Story: Knights of the Realm 
// by Kinni 
//------------------------------//

Everything exploded. Or at least it felt like it. While one might think Sunset would be vulnerable during her transformation, that could very easily be remedied by the simple measure of the Knight casting defensive spells beforehand to be triggered while she couldn't do anything else. In Sunset's case, defensive spells meant "lots of explosions".

Thankfully enough, the other Knights knew it was gonna happen, which was why they jumped away. While the explosions wouldn't have hurt them too much, they would most certainly have fulfilled their purpose and delayed any retaliation enough to cover Sunset's vulnerable period. So now, the Knights could take advantage of it.

Before the last few explosions were even halfway done, Rarity waved her horn and Rainbow Dash took off like a missile, breaking through the explosions like they weren't even there and hitting Sunset in the face ten times at supersonic speeds.

"Ow." Was the possessed Knight's reaction.

She then opened her mouth, and a blue light appeared inside it, just before a blue ray of immesurable cold shot out from there, and it hit the air around Dash, freezing it and trapping her in a block of ice. Her body was incredibly hot, but that was partially due to her weather channeling, and Sunset's spell had targetted the environment instead, showing that she was very aware of the weaknesses in it.

Sunset was about to follow up with a destructive spell that would shatter the ice and cause massive injuries to Rainbow Dash, when she suddenly blinked and hesitated, courtesy of a very forceful mind manipulating illusion Trixie had used. The possessed Knight was only delayed for an instant, but that was enough for Twilight to teleport in and remove the ice around Rainbow like it was a piece of clothing.

(Rarity and Rainbow undid their combination technique, knowing it wouldn't be useful in that situation.)

Despite looking easy, Twilight's spell had actually taken quite a bit of power, meaning she would be vulnerable to a nasty attack considering how close she was to Sunset. The operative words were "would be", because the unicorn was not alone, and Sunset knew that as well, so instead of taking the bait she flapped her fire wings to fly upwards and attacked with twenty three conjured drill spears.

The pony who showed up to receive them was Pinkie Pie, who was already in her Emotion Charge: Hope state, and thus was able to collide head-on with such a violent attack without losing out in the slightest.

Still, Sunset's transformed mode was nothing short of a beast, as it excelled in all areas, even speed, which was the one Pinkie's current form was the most lacking in. After the initial standoff, Sunset quickly managed to slip through Pinkie's attacks and hit her several dozens of times, almost breaking her hope construct's defense.

"Trance Mode: Harmony Shift!" But then Fluttershy appeared, and took up the forward position, leaving Pinkie free to quickly declare "Emotion Charge: Pure Hope!", since she hadn't actually done so yet, instead simply (?) manipulating cause and effect to get the effects early.

And while Fluttershy's mode shift had proven its strength and most importantly durability during the fight against Chrysalis, the current situation was quite different from before. Not only was she not simply acting as a support, but there was also the fact that she was using magic based upon harmony with the environment while in the middle of such a huge concentration of chaotic energy.

The mere concept of achieving such harmony in that situation would have seemed like a pipe dream a few weeks before, but the Knights were constantly growing stronger, and the fight against Chrysalis had truly pushed Fluttershy into whole new boundaries of skill and will.

This time, when her form changed, instead of merely a starlight crystal, Fluttershy seemed to turn into a constantly shifting maelstrom of stars contained within a form that was like gaseous glass. And of course, together with that change in appearance came a corresponding change in power, to the point where while Pinkie had been easily overcome by the superior might of Sunset, Fluttershy was actually capable of keeping up with her.

Sunset didn't have enough of a speed edge to win out in mobility, Fluttershy's defenses were more than good enough to block or deflect any of Sunset's casual or not so casual attacks, and Fluttershy's own offensive spells (mostly starlight beams and spheres) were good enough to force the possessed Knight to put some effort into her defenses, all of it together preventing her from mustering enough power to do some real damage.

At that point, Trixie and Rainbow Dash were already almost finished putting together their next moves (all of those previous exchanges having happened during less than fifteen seconds from Trixie's previous spell), and if the situation continued, even Sunset would end up being overwhelmed.

But it wouldn't be that easy.

'Essence Shift' Sunset's soul declared her second point of view, which had been the last during the fight with Chrysalis.

In the current situation, said point of view was much more powerful. So much that the situation changed immediately after that declaration. Sunset's magic, which had previously focused only on overwhelming power (as her initial declaration had been Essence Drive), instead acquired the consistency of illusion, becoming immaterial and flowing.

From Fluttershy's point of view if felt like punching a sandbag that suddenly became a water ballon and exploded in her face. A couple of magic arrows had splashed across her eyes, targetting the world itself with an explosive sensorial feedback that confused her senses for a fraction of a second, just enough for Sunset to grab hold of her with a tendril of magic and force-teleport both of them right on top of Trixie.

Said unicorn tsked as she evaded via an illusion of herself turning into a swarm of bats. There were only two declarations left before Sunset reached completion. Their plan was to attack her enough to lower her defenses, allowing Applejack to knock the chaos out of her (which worked out, as it was almost impossible for a holder of the Eyes of Truth to be possessed as such), but they needed to do it before she got to max power, because while they would probably still succeed anyway, it would take so much effort and energy that the success of the mission would become doubtful.

At that moment, Rainbow Dash finished preparing her own spell, since Sunset was only able to hinder one of the two who were about to do it. And the spell she cast was actually quite similar to what Fluttershy had done, and yet completely opposite.

"True Body: Chaotic Rebirth!"

Dash had used her magic in order to force the chaotic energy around her into a much more energetic state (which was quite a feat, considering how energetic chaos was normally), but instead of changing her body based on the weather of primordial chaos (which would be a bad idea, specially because she wasn't a natural chaotic mage), she instead used magic that had taken inspiration from Twilight's Chaotic Rebirth, a technique to force order into chaos.

And since she wasn't a chaotic mage, that didn't mean weakening herself either, but quite the opposite.

Rainbow Dash's body was broken down and rebuilt faster than instantly, and yet the power and focus of that action were such that everypony present "saw" and understood the process perfectly, despite the fact that it had taken place far too fast for their perceptions to capture. It could be said that instead of seeing what happened, they were instead "told" by Rainbow's magic, but with such rich detail that it was the same as seeing first hand.

And the truth of the matter was, that spell wasn't a mere reconstruction of her body, but a refinement. If her previous combination technique with Rarity had turned her into a being of another world, this time Rainbow Dash was turned into herself, only stronger.

Much, much stronger.

She exploded into flight right towards Sunset's location so fast she would have been able to hit the unicorn before the latter could even react, were it not for the fact that, during her teleportation, Sunset had placed Fluttershy exactly in between the two.

That ended up only earning her a minuscule fraction of a second, because instead of going around Fluttershy, Dash elected to unleash a lightning boosted punch straight through her, to which Fluttershy dutifully made herself partially immaterial to allow it to go through (That was still a thing she could do. It hadn't stopped being a thing since the last mission). However, Sunset knew her student well, and was prepared for such an attack.

She shot a rain of crystals with lightning rod capabilities straight through the same opening her opponent was using, at exactly the right moment... However, she still underestimated her student, because knowing someone well went both ways.

Right before the crystals were about to absorb Rainbow's lightning and possibly hurt her significantly, the two pegasi shifted places, the weird harmony of their current forms allowing such. Suddenly it was Fluttershy who was punching through Rainbow Dash, and the crystals had no lightning to absorb, only hitting Fluttershy with their own strength, which she was more than capable of withstanding.

And so, Sunset was completely unprepared and without defense when Fluttershy's punch unleashed a powerful beam of starlight magic that hit her right in the face. It was the first time in the battle she had taken significant damage. Of course, Rainbow Dash hadn't planned for any of that, everything was done based completely on instinct.

If the Knights didn't press their advantage at that moment, it wasn't likely they would get a similar opportunity, so that was exactly what they did, starting with Twilight:

"Magical Time: Waterfall!" She declared her magic, appearing beside Sunset, and the whole battlefield was split in half.

The best way one could describe it was as a weird vertical sinkhole, as the very matter of that chaotic space was sucked into a gigantic pillar of matter and energy that crashed down into Sunset like a waterfall full of boulders.

"Khh!" Was the only sound the possessed Knight could muster in response, before she rallied.

'Essence Hold.' Her soul declared, and with a singular, massively powerful spell, she froze Twilight's attack in time, causing such extreme feedback that her fellow Knight literally exploded (but like, only a small explosion). Temporarily putting her out of action. Yet Sunset knew the other Knights were attacking as well, so she was still in grave danger. She followed up by forcing even more power out, preparing to defend against anything they could muster.

Except, it turned out that as they had talked about before the mission, chaos was truly unexpected and hard to prepare for, and the Knights had two chaos users.

"Emotion Charge: Pure Joy!" Pinkie cast her spell.

Just like before, this resulted in a veritable swarm of Pinkies appearing, only this time it was much more, due to both her greater strength as well as the chaotic environment, those Pinkie's literally covered the entire battlefield, and as one, they all grabbed Sunset. Specially the ones that were too far away to reach.

Being grabbed from so many different directions at once via so much chaotic and emotion magic was something even Sunset's huge stored power and preparations were incapable of easily coping with. The best she could do was release an omnidirectional explosion that managed to annihilate every single one of Pinkie's copies and stun the real one for a bit, but also wasted so much energy she was wide open when Rainbow Dash flew at her carrying Fluttershy.

The duo of pegasi didn't waste any time and battered her with a barrage of close range attacks, at the same time spreading their magic to prevent their opponent from teleporting away. Sunset was reduced to putting all her energy into repeated barrier spells, trying desperately to stall until she could declare her final point of view and reach maximum power.

That was when Applejack stepped in.

"Eyes of Truth: Banish!" She cast, and then punched Sunset.

The precision of her punch was beyond imagination. Not only did she target the exact moment when most of Sunset's shields were down from the pegasi attacks and before she could make more, but she also targetted the weakest point in her defenses, from a perfect blind spot to give Sunset absolutely no chance to respond.

The hoof hit right on the side of Sunset's head, and on the other side, a small purple wisp came out of her ear, the "chaotic spirit" that had been possessing her... Which proceeded to vanish, reappearing right beside Rainbow Dash's ear, and possessing her instead.

The retribution attack was swift and merciless, with Dash exploding towards Applejack with a web of lightning coursing through her wings, but thankfully Applejack was prepared. She took a step to put Fluttershy in between herself and Rainbow, and said pegasus quickly realized what had happened and blocked the new enemy's attack.

That was a perfectly legitimate and well executed strategy, and yet Applejack was still dissatisfied. Once more she was faced with her current limitations, and were this not such a difficult and concentration heavy situation, she would probably be thinking about ways to make up for it.

Regardless, since Fluttershy knew that Rainbow Dash was now the one possessed, that meant everypony knew it too, and the first one to do something about it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Rarity. She teleported in right beside the possessed pegasus, one sword raised high in the air.

"Water Ruler Sword: Unreasonable Tsunami!" She declared with an angry voice, and swung her sword down.

It was an exceedingly violent and powerful attack that briefly conjured up half an ocean of water to crash into the opponent, and it wasn't the least bit discriminate, so it hit Fluttershy as well, but she was currently tougher than even Rainbow Dash's transformed state by an entire factor, so that could be considered a worthy sacrifice (her comrades were really not going easy on her in this fight).

Said pegasi allowed herself to be washed away by the water, reducing her damage to the minimum while also taking up the space to prevent Rainbow Dash from doing the same.

"True Magic: Pegasus Ascend!" So she unleashed an actual spell, the first time she had done so ever since changing into her current form.

And despite its name, Rainbow Dash actually went into a dive. But that was the only concession she made towards the immense power of the attack levelled against her. She did not even try to get out of the way, simply channeling magic to harden herself against the physical and magical impact.

Due to the very nature of the attack, it wasn't a singular entity, but a myriad of magic enhanced water drops, and so, as the first part of the spell kept hitting Dash, more and more of it lost its magic and would vanish from existence... Except that Rainbow Dash's magic "captured" them.

As she dove, the pegasus carried an increasing amount of water with her, and she unleashed her own magic to make the volume of it even greater, to the point where after having absorbed only a third of Rarity's water, she had already matched the other two thirds in sheer mass. So Rainbow pulled up from her dive and finally made the name of her spell not be a lie.

The massive amount of water under her control shaped itself into a crescent, accompanying the pegasus in her ascension. She hit the remainder of Rarity's spell and started breaking through it at high speed.

Said unicorn replied to that by bringing out her Wind Ruler Sword.

"Water and Wind Rule: Lightning Annihilation!" She cast.

A massive wave of wind forced itself through all the water violently, separating it into the smallest molecules in an interaction that generated a colossal amount of lightning energy, creating a mountain-sized web of electricity with Rainbow right in the middle.

"Khh!" Dash let out a sound, her advance slowed to a crawl. Even with her current form, and the power of her spell, she was simply incapable of overcoming such an attack that mixed overwhelming power and cunningness to trap her in the most dangerous part.

Not without going beyond her limits, at least.

"Limit Break: Reverse Polarity!" All the water still under Dash's control squeezed together on top of her, forced by an unimaginable amount of pressure she was generating outside, and then she did the same thing on her own body, thus unleashing pressure on the water from both sides, enough that it actually began affecting space, making the water fold in and of itself, generating a strange sort of reverse electrical energy, something that wouldn't be possible in any normal circumstance.

Said energy interacted with Rarity's lightning in a mutual annihilation reaction, causing a massive explosion, but more importantly, considering that Rarity was channeling magic furiously to maintain her lightning trap, while Rainbow Dash had merely set off the spark that let to the anti-lightning, only the unicorn got hit with the feedback of a broken spell.

"Gwaaah!" Rarity cried, vomiting blood.

And that was all the opportunity Rainbow needed. All done instinctually. She launched herself at Rarity, gathering some of the remnant energy of the explosion into her right forehoof and dashing in for a lethal attack while the unicorn was defenseless.

She was not however, alone.

Fluttershy interposed herself to block the attack, managing to stop it but being blown away several meters in the air, and she also realized something, which was easy to confirm with a single look:

Rainbow was hurt, blood could be seen leaking from within her armor, proof of the burden the limit break had caused on her body.

Meanwhile, Sunset had finally recovered her senses. She saw the same thing, and realized how close they all had come to disaster.

If the chaotic spirit had forced her into using Overdrive, things would definitely have gone much worse, but thankfully enough, her mental defenses were enough to prevent such a thing, as were Rainbow's, though they were not enough to prevent the chaotic spirit to force her into wrecking her own body with a limit break.

Or more than one.

"Limit Break: Countinuous Blast!" Rainbow Dash once again broke the limits of even her strengthened body, using a combination of air explosions and mini-vacuums to propel her hooves against Fluttershy at speeds even she was unable to follow, she hit tens of thousands of times before the blink of an eye, and at the end of it, the thing that broke... were her legs.

That was part of the plan. As Rainbow recoiled from her attack, legs broken, Fluttershy discovered that her endurance had been factored in Rainbow's plan, and in fact aided in it. Somehow, the immense amount of power the pegasus unleashed had become "trapped" in the other pegasus' defenses, a continuous chain of explosions occurring on top of her, never actually managing to cause more than superficial injuries, but handily keeping her in place.

At that moment, both Twilight and Sunset were ready to intervene, but they detected a massive amount of energy being concentrated above, right in the very core of the Cloud of Chaos. It was clear that it had decided 1 against 7 was a little too lopsided, and decided to help its current champion out.

'Essence Charge' Sunset hurried to complete her Essence Heart, and teleported as close to the energy as possible.

"Core Essence: Knight's Shield!" She declared a spell just as fast as she was magically able to.

In response, her fire wings expanded into lake-sized shields of power, forcefully interposing themselves between the battlefield and the incoming chaotic attack.

It was just barely in time, as the world was suddenly split in half. Below her shield was the unchanged battlefield, while above her shield had become the domain of absolute chaos. It was an ocean of ridiculous shapes and forms that seemed to have a grudge against the very concept of anything else existing in the world. They pushed against the shield in a myriad of manners, physically, magically, mentally... Their attacks were large, small, slashing, corroding, everything one could think off.

It was far too much for Sunset's hastily formed shield to withstand for long, but she only needed to last long enough for Twilight to act.

"Magical Time: Chaotic Breakdown!" Twilight cast, finally bringing out her A game and consuming a huge amount of power in the process.

She appeared right below Sunset and put her forehooves on her fellow Knight's back, channeling her spell straight through her in a perfect show of trust. Her power interacted directly with the edge of the chaotic maelstrom, twisting the idea of it backwards, and forcing it to try and "swim against the current", acting against the rest of the chaotic and reducing the pressure on Sunset, slowly but surely managing to defend against the overwhelming attack.

The two of them were enough for that, so that left Trixie free to deal with Rainbow Dash. The unicorn Knight teleported standing right on Dash's back, stepping so lightly she wasn't noticed at first, but she was definitely noticed when she cast her spell, stabbing her horn on the back of her opponent's head.

She didn't have any choice. To use an effective illusion against Rainbow, such methods were necessary.

"Grand Illusion: Waking Nightmare!" Trixie declared, using an amount of magic that would be considered excessive were she not facing such a resilient foe.

And Rainbow Dash fell into a world of illusion. From her perspective, it was as if the chaotic battlefield had been replaced by a dark abyss, replete with horrifying demonic creatures, the likes of which would bring hesitation to even the most courageous of heroes, all of which emanated a feeling of power on the level of an alicorn. And the worst part was, the illusion caused Dash to completely believe that was all real, despite the great incongruity it had with her previous situation.

To all of that, Rainbow Dash had a singular response.

"LIMIT BREAK: WINGS OF DAWN!" She forced out yet another limit break out of her body, vomiting out a good bit of blood and... bits of organs due to the sheer strain she was putting her body through.

The pegasus flapped her wings just once, but they were channeling such power if almost felt like they were dual suns in the middle of the abyssal darkness. And when they flapped, they did so in such a way that every separate feather reached supersonic speed individually, resulting in a multitude of shockwaves that collided with each other, building energy thanks both to the chaotic nature of that space and Dash's magic, resulting in a chaotic storm of tearing space around the pegasus.

That was just the side-effect of her attack preparation.

That mighty wing flap had been done while completely motionless, with Rainbow Dash "storing" the energy of the movement as if she was an elastic that was being stretched. Then she flapped again and released it launching herself at speeds that caused her to bend space itself (in contrast to the usual, where bending space was used to increase speed).

In a single breath, Rainbow Dash had decapitated half of the "demons". And then the illusion broke.

The pegasus looked around. Trixie was falling from the sky, bleeding... And Rarity had been cut in half.

Something deep inside Rainbow Dash's soul started screaming 'No no no no no no NO NO NO' And her body froze in place.

"Eyes of Truth: Banish!" Came Applejack's voice.

The pegasus was hit in the back of the head by nothing, and the chaotic spirit was ejected from her. Also, the illusion broke again.

This time, only three things changed: The first was Applejack was behind her, having just punched her in the back of the head, and she was currently tracking the chaotic spirit with her eyes. The second was that Trixie was completely unscathed, and looking at her with a satisfied expression.

The third was that Rarity was still in one piece. Dash realized almost immediately what had happened: That world of darkness was in fact just the first layer of Trixie's nightmare illusion, and breaking through it had simply put her inside the second layer, the true waking nightmare, and that was sufficient distraction for Applejack to do her job.

Rainbow Dash had just reached said realization when the pain hit. Even in her True Body state, using three limit breaks in sequence was far too much. All her muscles seized and she felt like her insides had been repeatedly slashed (which would actually be an improvement over what had actually happened). Incapable of flapping her wings, the pegasus fell.

She was caught by Rarity's telekinesis, and then said unicorn cast a spell:

"Restoration!"

And a wave of magic infused itself into Rainbow Dash's body, healing her inside and out. She was still incapable of moving anything other than her head, but at least she wasn't literally dying anymore. Which she proved by using her magic to manipulate the wind to be able to keep herself in the air, even after Rarity's telekinesis ceased.

Meanwhile, the chaotic spirit seemed to have decided that Rarity's spell made her distracted enough to serve as a good targer, but in truth, it was likely she would have been possessed even without that being a factor. And so, Rarity was the next one to have herself turned against her companions.

"Tch!" Applejack was annoyed. She had been getting ever closer to actually catching that thing, and almost managed to do it before that latest possession. Applejack stepped away from view as soon as she realized her failure, knowing she would be the priority target for Rarity's attacks if she was near.

Yet, that seemed to be unnecessary, as Rarity's possession did not occur nearly as fast as those of the other Knights, completely surprising even Applejack's Eyes of Truth (as befitting of a chaotic effect). Seeing that, Fluttershy flew right towards Rarity, aiming to take advantage of her momentary immobility, but just before she could reach the unicorn, a shadow shaped piece of space moved over her and made Rarity disappear.

She reappeared quite high up, four swords bared towards Sunset and Twilight, who were still handling the attack from above.

"Slash of Chaotic Domain: Twisted World." She declared, and swung her four swords.

As they swung, the four swords dragged along space itself, leaving behind an unsettling void. Said space twisted based on which sword had caught it, becoming fiery, windy, watery or earthy (there was really no better way to describe it) but above all else becoming far more powerful and threatening.

It became clear that the perceived slowness of the possession was far worse than merely misleading, because Rarity actually seemed to be the perfect host for the chaotic spirit, being able to mix her original skills with the power of chaos she was channeling in order to create brand new spells on the fly.

Still, there was a pony who wasn't fooled.

"Emotion Charge: Pure Sadness." Pinkie Pie cast, appearing right in front of Rarity's attack.

The appearance of that charge was definitely the most unique out of all the ones she had shown in battle until then. That wasn't a factor of the color of the energy that suffused her body, which was simply a deep and dark blue, but because her form seemed to be... the best description one could make about it would be comparing her to a tear that was slowly going down somepony's face.

She seemed slightly smudgy and stretched downwards, with a consistency that was somewhat pasty. But the most striking feature of her current form was the simplest one: The look of terrible sadness that seemed utterly out of place on Pinkie's face, and was completely clear despite her form.

She moved in a way that felt extremely slow, but still managed to complete her movements before the attack reached her. She put her two forehooves together as if in a clap, but vertically instead of horizontally. Then she twisted and inverted their positions.

"Invert." She spoke softly in a voice that was utterly devoid of joy.

And with that, the world turned upside down. Everything except for Rarity and her attack was inverted vertically. Sunset and Twilight were defending from an attack coming from the "ground", the "cloud" made of gold threads was in the sky (and it fitted strangely well), and Rarity's overwhelming attack was bearing down towards the Knights who were not otherwise occupied, and thus could defend themselves.

As seemed to be her lot in life, Fluttershy was the one to head out and meet the attack head-on, bracing against nothing and unleashing all of her considerable magic power to fortify her defenses. And yet, she seemed to have met her match. The four slashes collided with her body and washed her down like a rock by a flood. Both her aura and her body were broken through, huge injuries being engraved upon her flesh, wrenching a scream out of her.

Rarity seemed intent on slashing through each and every one of the Knights in her path since her previous plan had been disrupted, but as soon as the attack got close to the others, it stopped in the air before disappearing, its energy utterly spent in dealing with Fluttershy's defenses.

Said pegasus started groaning softly and breathing heavily, obviously tired from the effort of that defense. She disappeared with a gesture from Pinkie Pie, obviously being put somewhere safe(ish) to be able to recover. Said earth pony had not moved from her spot "guarding" the duo of Knights, which was mainly because she couldn't.

Pure Sadness was a very difficult state to handle. Not only was normal magic impossible to be used while in it, but Pinkie was also completely unable to move. In exchange, her chaotic space manipulation reached an incredibly high standard, but that was usually not the best trade, though it worked out this time. Every single Emotion Magic user had different effects for each emotion (Remember when that was stated way back then? Wow, time sure does fly), so it made sense Pinkie wouldn't be good with sadness.

Regardless, with Rarity's attack stopped, the other Knights had an opportunity to attack her in turn. However, the circumstances couldn't be worse for that.

Rainbow Dash did not do so, since she was far too hurt to be able to put out an effective attack with any kind of speed. Applejack was moving around stealthily via her Myriad Steps, looking out for any other tricks the Cloud of Chaos might pull while also searching for any openings to banish the spirit from Rarity. And with Pinkie immobile and Fluttershy still reeling, that left Trixie as the only one who could make immediate use of that opportunity.

That wasn't really her specialty, but Trixie decided that her best option was using close combat, since none of her long-range skills were that good in terms of destructive power. Facing off against Rarity, a sword expert, in her current state would seem to be a foolish endeavor, but the illusionist Knight had her own ways to fight.

She teleported close to Rarity, but not too close, instead she was at an awkward range that was too far for normal slashes, and too close for true ranged attacks. Then she conjured up a bunch of free floating crystal blades and had then attack Rarity from multiple angles.

That was a particularly devious attack. Some of the blades targetted fragile points like Rarity's horn and eyes, others changed targets suddenly, yet others hid themselves behind their fellow blades and attacked with staggered timing to get around any ordinary block Rarity could put up.

Still, all that was still far from enough to truly threaten the sword-using unicorn. She swept her four blades, using relatively basic elemental spells to accurately block, redirect or simply smash through all of Trixie's attacks, and followed through seamlessly by sweeping up those spells with chaotic power into a gigantic slash that covered a ridiculous amount of area. Completely turning the area in front of her into a no-life zone.

Rarity also prepared a spell to prevent Trixie from teleporting out, but then an illusion-hidden, extremely weak spell splashed against her horn, not causing any damage (because any spell powerful enough to cause damage couldn't be hidden that well), but delaying her spell enough to allow Trixie to teleport behind her.

"Reverse Slash." Rarity intoned, and what happened next made it look like she had changed time to make her previous slash hit behind her instead of in front (it didn't, the change was just really fast and sudden), hitting Trixie with a massively powerful attack.

Or rather, the illusion of Trixie, as she hadn't actually teleported behind Rarity, but just send an illusion instead. She would not be caught by such an elementary trap.

A moment after the illusion was hit, Trixie reappeared from her teleport, having forcefully delayed her arrival to appear in front of Rarity, where had just been a no-life zone.

"Rever-" Rarity tried to do the same trick again, but Trixie shut her up with another crystal blade slash directly to her throat, causing damage even through her defenses.

In the battle to predict each other's moves, Trixie had been the victor of the first round. However, instead of continuing, Rarity spoke another spell:

"Chaotic Steps." She vanished into the chaos, and almost before one could blink, Applejack was under attack.

Rarity had accurately pinpointed Applejack as the biggest threat remaining, and had decided to deal with her first. However, Applejack was just as much of a close-combat expert as Rarity, and she would not be easy to take down. Upon being attacked from within the chaos, Applejack decided to give Rarity the one on one battle she seemed to want.

"Myriad Steps." She chanted, and dodged the attack by moving right into the space between spaces Rarity was in.

What followed was a sequence of exchanges that only the duo of fighters were aware off, as it occurred in the chaotic spaces, where time and existence were hazy and difficult to define. Rarity had the definite advantage in power due to her channeling of chaos, but Applejack's Myriad Steps and Myriad Blows combined with her Eyes of Truth were enough to compensate for that. She moved and attacked through the changing spaces as if they were her own backyard, and even managed to get in some good hits.

Still, even with her conservative fighting style, Applejack's energy simply wouldn't last as long as Rarity's, who was supplied by chaotic power. So it was a good thing she wasn't counting on such.

Meanwhile, on the outside, Fluttershy had just finished rebuilding all of her defenses and become fighting ready again, when she realized Twilight was calling her. She looked up into the unicorn's eyes and an idea passed between the two of them. Fluttershy momentarily frowned, as if she was going "seriously?", but then she set her expression and nodded.

As if that had been a signal, two of the other Knights acted at exactly the same time. Pinkie did a small gesture and Applejack stopped herself in the middle of a movement to release a fully unexpected punch on Rarity. The unicorn blocked with two swords, fully intent on taking advantage of Applejack's reckless attack to counter attack. However, just when the hoof made contact, Pinkie's space manipulation caused a small tear in space to appear behind Rarity, which  caused her to lose her balance, allowing Applejack's attack to push her into the tear and out of the chaotic space.

At the same time as she was flying out, both Sunset and Twilight teleported away, allowing the exceedingly powerful chaotic attack to pass. But of course, that was part of the plan, and as expected, Fluttershy flew up to meet it.

"World Standard: Devourer of Chaos!" She cast.

Once more, Fluttershy entered into harmony with the environment, but this time it was different, and not only because she hadn't actually disabled her Trance Mode beforehand. This time, the technique she was using had its roots on her old Animal Spirit magic, which Fluttershy had been attempting to improve on for quite a while.

Fairly early on she had hit upon the idea of using things that did not actually exist to base her new forms on. However, Fluttershy had fairly quickly realized the reality of her own lack of creative ability, or at least when it came down to making up things with magic. Her current spell solved the issue by handing over the creative process over to the world itself.

That was the meaning of World Standard. The premise of it was to make up for what the world lacked. In this place that was so overloaded with chaos, what was most lacked was something that could bring back balance, an existence that was chaos' natural enemy. A Devourer of Chaos.

The aura around her expanded and took on a shape. It was a shape of a horrifying monster that had no place in the world. One could only see it's outline, but it was still enough to send shivers down anyone's spines. There were far too many mouths with far too many teeth, there were tentacles and tendrils, and a shape that was like a deformed eight.

Fluttershy launched herself upwards, englobed by that monstrous aura, and crashed against the powerful beam of chaotic energy. Then her aura opened its mouth and started to eat it. Little by little she forced herself upwards, eating her way towards the source of the attack, the true core of the Cloud of Chaos.

When Rarity was sent flying into the regular battlefield, before she could even get her bearings, Sunset crashed into her with the force of a rampaging Changeling Queen, and grabbed her stunned form. Twilight then appeared above the duo and did her final part in the plan.

"Magical Time: Chaotic Overflow." She spoke, and lightly touched Rarity's head.

Unwillingly, the possessed unicorn started to absorb and channel far more chaotic power than she had before. Her body bloated as it could not take in so much chaotic energy and she appeared to be unable to breathe. Twilight lightly slapped her back and Rarity vomited.

However, what she vomited wasn't food (as should be obvious to anyone who undertood horses) but chaos. She vomited a torrent of chaotic energy together with the chaotic spirit that had been possessing her.

Said chaotic spirit tried to jump into Twilight, but she simply moved her head a bit to evade it. Then it tried to go after Sunset, but she teleported away. And then Applejack stepped out of the chaos and punched the chaotic spirit in the face it didn't have.

"Ya are within the range of mah divination." She spoke calmly as she released her magic.

Feeling the danger, the chaotic spirit fled into the chaotic space, but Applejack seemed to not care, and simply cast her spell.

"Eyes of Truth: The Hunt." And she stepped into the chaos herself.

Without even a pause, she transitioned immediately into a punch that broke through the weakest part of the defenses the chaotic spirit had hastily erected around itself.

From there, it was all over. The chaotic spirit tried to escape, warping wildly around many different chaotic spaces, sometimes manipulating the world around, sometimes attacking, sometimes trying to possess the other Knights. However, nothing that it did seemed to have any effect on Applejack, who moved relentlessly step by step, each move bringing forth an inescapable attack that quickly piled upon the damage on the spirit.

Eventually, it faltered, unable to continue trying its futile escape, and that was the sign for Applejack to unleash a full-on barrage of punches, making it break apart into shards, and then nothingness.

At the same time as Applejack was finishing off the chaotic spirit, Fluttershy was doing the same to the core of the Cloud of Chaos.

As her aura of the Devourer of Chaos ate away more and more of the enemy attack and off the whole chaos in the surroundings, it got ever stronger. In the beginning it was difficult to see whether she was making any progress against the beam of chaotic energies, but soon enough she was eating through everything at a high speed. The Cloud of Chaos began attacking her with everything it had, but it barely manage to slow Fluttershy down.

Finally, she reached into the core of the Cloud and bit into it, the teeth of her aura grinding the exceedingly resilient core as if it was mere wood, and then it shattered.

The results of that action were clear and majestic. The world was suddenly put upright again, and the ground returned to its normal state, the Cloud shrunk at a visible rate and the spatial disturbances disappeared, allowing the Knights to see more than their immediate surroundings, thus seeing that the chaotic effects were disappearing all around.

And yet, the Knights didn't relax. They were far too experienced to believe things would be over so easily. And they were  right to think so.

The shards of the core of the Cloud suddenly exploded with a brighter light than anything they had shown before, unleashing power that was even greater than the last desperate attacks it had done to protect itself. The remains of the Cloud of Chaos congregated into a small area and began to spin like a hurricane, obviously setting up some sort of exceedingly power magic. And Sunset was the first to realize what was going on.

"Is this... an Overdrive?"