//------------------------------// // Seal of Chaos // Story: Knights of the Realm // by Kinni //------------------------------// Soon enough, Sunset realized that what the Cloud of Chaos was doing wasn't exactly an Overdrive. While its existence had something close enough to a soul in order for that to theoretically work, it was so unstable its will would break apart before being able to pull in enough energy. However, what it was doing was pretty much just as threatening. It could be called death magic, or end magic, though those terms could easily confuse the issue. Perhaps the most appropriate would be to call it last ditch magic, but in a much more serious sense. The Cloud of Chaos was actually taking advantage of its own impending destruction, using it as conceptual fuel for a powerful spell. It was like the old adage of "a candle burns most brightly when it's about to go out", there was a certain power to one's last actions, a weight that gave them more power, but most importantly, made them harder to disrupt. As such, even in her current form, Fluttershy declined to try and stop whatever was being done, as she felt it would be close to impossible, and instead she retreated to group back with the other Knights, who had gathered again. The amount of power that spell was drawing in had gone past concerning and into levels that made several of the Knights consider triggering Overdrives just to have a greater chance of handling whatever was heading towards them. They ultimately decided not to, feeling like it would never be too late to do it once they actually knew what the chaos was trying to do. Yet, as the feeling of power out of that spell increased to a level beyond literally anything they had ever witnessed in their lives, it took a lot of self-restraint not to call upon their full power just for reassurance. They did it, though, succeeding at least partially due to the fact that despite how chaotic the source of the spell was, the sheer power of the magical working made it impossible to hide the intent of it. It wasn't fully aggressive, like a direct attack. It also wasn't insidious, like an illusion or mind control spell. Instead, the best word one could use to describe said intent was oddly "constructive", like it was creating something. But whatever it was, it would definitely be bad news, simply by the fact that as the lasting will of the Cloud of Chaos was slowly dissipating as it formed the spell, one could feel from its remnants an astounding sense of sheer malice. And when those last few strands of will finally vanished as well, the spell triggered. The matter of chaotic clouds that had been forced together by the magic started to vibrate in a dozen different frequencies, all at the same time, creating a strange spectacle that could be likened to a popcorn bag in a microwave. Soon, the outline of space around that was vibrating as well, and changing colors to become a purely white ring around the inner mass. An awful sound that could only be described by invoking the image of thousands of iron knives scraping against each other at the same time emanated from that space. That was only the prelude. "AAAARGH!" Four of the Knights, Pinkie, Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow Dash screamed in pain from the feedback received by their senses as the mass seemed to shift subtly, when in fact the space of the mass had been distorted beyond anything even close to what they had seen before. These four immediately did the magical equivalent of looking away, and thus missed what happened next. As for the others, three of them managed to avoid any mental damage. Trixie because her mental defenses were strong enough to block the sensorial feedback completely, while Sunset and Fluttershy were resilient enough that the attack on their senses couldn't quite harm them. (Rainbow Dash would have been in the same boat, except she was currently too injured.) Meanwhile, Applejack had taken a different tack than any of the others. She forced herself to not look away, holding true to her principles of truth even as a vein was torn open in her brain and blood started leaking out from her right eye. As such, she managed to finally understand what exactly the enemy was doing. It was a portal to another world. And not just any ordinary world either. The Knights were powerful and knowledgeable enough to open their own portals to other worlds, thought usually they would need rituals or other types of aid in order to achieve such, but the world this chaotic portal was leading to was much farther "away" than anywhere the Knights would even try to reach with their own portals unless they had absolutely no choice. In fact, it was so far away the only reason the portal even worked was the inherent paradoxical nature of such a powerful chaotic spell. And that was the final step of the spell, as the chaotic mass in the center of the ring folded upon itself and turned into a hole in existence, behind which another world lurked. A moment later, Rarity and the other three regained their senses: "Restoration!" The unicorn declared, having seen Applejack's injuries. Thankfully enough, they were relatively light, only in a very sensitive place, and Rarity had enough precision to deal with it. Everypony else looked upon the nascent portal and realized what it was. That was all the time they had before a white gaseous mass began to pour out of it. Applejack's Eyes of Truth had never wavered from the portal, even as she was being healed, and so she managed to realize what exactly they were dealing with. "That's Sealing Magic!" She screamed. That's right. Screamed. The other Knights barely managed to stop themselves from looking at the earth pony in shock. That was the first time they had ever heard Applejack sound so absolutely terrified. And those that could started focusing their powers, just to try and deal with whatever horrors were about to come. The white mass spread slowly and unhurriedly, at first looking to be no more threatening than mere mist, but after a single second of that spread, each and every one of the ponies realized the true terror of that magic. Because as the "mist" travelled through the air, what was left behind was a pure white void, like space itself had been covered in paint that was the whitest that a color could possibly be. Had the Knights been normal ponies, this would have been the only thing they actually felt, but their senses were far sharper than those of the average member of their species, thanks to their great power and training, and as such they could feel much more of the disturbance that the sealing magic was causing in its wake. It wasn't just limited to sight. The Knights were capable of hearing and feeling the smallest of air currents, and so they realized that not only had the air become completely still, but all sounds that they should have been able to hear coming from the direction of the portal were completely gone as well, any soundwave that touched that white mass simply stopping. Besides that were also their senses for magic, which were receiving even more concerning information. Not only could they not feel any magic power coming from the obviously magical white mist, but even the magic that should have been present in the environment was unable to be detected at all, and that disturbing lack of magical energy around the white mist caused disturbances in the magic all around the place. Small disturbances, but enough to unsettle the Knights, specially given the prospect that the white mist could just keep spreading. For Applejack, it was much worse, since her senses were far beyond any of her fellow Knights. Her Eyes of Truth could tell that the white mist was "sealing" everything. There was nothing that thing was incapable of sealing, matter, energy, minds, souls, magic, life, and even Truth itself could not escape from the grasp of that power. And it wasn't just a prospect, Applejack could tell that as long as the portal remained open, the sealing magic would continue to spread forever, until their whole universe had been fully suppressed. 'As long as the portal remained open', was the bit of understanding Applejack clung to in order to calm herself down and focus on the situation. She very much did not want to have to actually fight the sealing magic, so Applejack looked deeper and tried to figure out what would happen if they just left it alone. After a few moments, Applejack figured it out. Her previous thoughts were wrong, the sealing magic would not be able to cover the whole universe because the spreading of the magical disturbances caused by it would eventually destabilize the portal, cutting off the source of the sealing energy. Yet, the earth pony had to hold back a curse. That would take too long. By the time the magical disturbance was enough to shut the portal, the whole land of Equestria would have already been subsumed by the Seal. That was unnacceptable. Their only option was to close the portal themselves. Breathing in deeply, Applejack turned her Eyes of Truth back onto the portal and the mass of sealing magic, focusing her senses to the utmost and enduring the pain such an action caused to herself. Looking into the portal was one thing, but the sealing magic was quite another, and it felt like an extreme suction force was trying to rip her soul straight from her body. That was the simple effect of connecting with the seal even at the most basic level to draw information from it. She drank deeply upon the well of Truth, taking in every single detail she was capable of understanding. And no more. Trixie had taught her a lot about the risks of losing oneself in perception, and she had the recorded experiences of many past holders of the Eye of Truth that had been Knights to draw upon in order to control herself. It would do no good to anypony were she to lose herself. Applejack then closed her eyes, using all her strength to prevent herself from forgetting the Truth she had received. She had one last thing to do, and the survival of her companions was probably dependent on her success. "Words of Truth: Enlighten!" She shouted, using the most powerful spell she was capable of. She took all the Truth, all the information she had managed to gather about their situation, converted it into a form the other Knights would be able to receive, and sent it to them. Her spell complete, Applejack collapsed into unconsciousness, her stamina utterly spent, her mind and soul feeling tattered. Wordlessly, Sunset teleported her away from the battlefield, into a pre-prepared safe position under guard. These days they could never be too careful considering how many powerful enemies were active. The other Knights in the battlefield grimly prepared themselves. Thanks to Applejack's dedication, they were now completely aware of exactly what kind of trial awaited them, but that only served to make the Knights even more determined. For warriors that had overcome numerous challenges such as them, that sort of thing was not enough to make them hesitate. "Core Essence: Infinite Spells!" Sunset acted first of them, unleashing the same spell she had used against Chrysalis. Except that this time, instead of being composed only of attack spells, she forced her essence to release every single type of spell she knew, giving such variety to her magic that even the overwhelming sealing magic slowed down its spread due to its natural need to "seal" everything. But just a bit. Sunset's expression soured upon seeing how little effect her efforts had. Meanwhile, Pinkie and Twilight were making their move. They took bouncing steps towards the white mass, aiming at the portal. Soon enough, they grimaced before doing high jumps onto the top of the mass, joining hooves together just before landing. As soon as they touched it, the two started doing a weird bipedal gallop, still holding forehooves and coordinating their steps like an extreme version of a three-legged race, their hooves moving with such speed that they became pure blurs. That was pretty much the fastest way any of the Knights were capable of approaching the portal, given that Rainbow Dash was mostly out of action. Sunset would have usually been able to cover the distance faster in her current form, but the air disturbances caused by the sealing of space made flight above the cloud a very tricky proposition, and the unicorn did not have the instincts that her student could have used to compensate. Truly, chaos was adept at making everything complicated. However, even the incredibly fast advance of the duo was far from enough to reach the portal, as when they were merely halfway there, their movement stopped as suddenly as if they had hit an impenetrable wall, their hooves utterly stuck and sealed by the white magic, which started crawling up their legs despite their doing their best to resist. Their companions would not allow such a thing, however, and the first to take action was Fluttershy, who took the utterly unexpected action of diving into the white mass. The power of her current form showed itself clearly at that moment, as the monstrous aura managed to resist the sealing power relatively well, despite being utterly englobed in it. And then Fluttershy cast a spell: "Empathy Drive: Draw!" She declared, and then her soul did the metaphysical equivalent of shouting as loudly as possible to attract attention. For the unthinking mass of sealing magic, it was utterly impossible to resist something like that, and most of the power of it converged towards Fluttershy, instantly easing the pressure on the duo of chaos users. It was not enough for them to escape, but Fluttershy was not the only Knight who could help. Rarity raised her water and earth swords and cast a spell of her own: "Mud Formation: Pathmaker!" Water and earth condensed together to form a mud road above Rarity's head. The unicorn chanted magic at a ridiculously high speed, and countless words of spell script engraved themselves on all layers of the mud. That was when the true nature of her magic became obvious. Rarity was actually crafting an entire new artefact on the fly. It wouldn't last for long, but that was still an amazing achievent. Despite how long it took to describe, in truth everything was done so fast that by the time Fluttershy had drawn the enemy's attention, Rarity's work was already over, and she crashed her mud road artefact on top of the white mist, and it was just long enough to reach the point Pinkie and Twilight had been stuck. The duo would not lose that opportunity, and they popped out from the mass and landed on top of the road, leaving their back legs behind. Or rather, very realistic boots that looked like their legs, complete with price tags (chaos magic was just like that). They ran back atop the mud road, managing to escape from the area of the sealing magic just before Rarity's artefact was subsumed by it. Meanwhile, Fluttershy's monstrous aura construct had already been almost completely sealed, and its purpose was achieved, so the pegasus simply "cast it off". Like a bug undergoing metamorphosis, she completely left behind her "shell", with a rebirth that was so fast and purposeful that the pegasus managed to swim through the sealing mist she had been inside off and escape it without any hindrances whatsoever. Their first attempt at reaching the portal had ended in failure, but they had obtained important information regarding the power and scope of the enemy magic. And it was all captured under the senses of Sunset Shimmer. "Everypony, to me! I have a plan!" She declared. The group joined together back again, and Sunset immediately started giving orders. "Trixie, you need to trick the sealing energy to keep it under control for a bit." She didn't ask if Trixie was able to, she knew her sister. "Sure, but it will be better if you suppress it first." Trixie replied, to which Sunset simply nodded. "Rarity, you need to make the best path you can." She continued, and said unicorn immediately started casting her spells. "Fluttershy, you need to go together with those two, and suppress the last bit to give them a shot." The pegasus nodded and started rebuilding her chaotic monster aura, this time using her own power since there wasn't a chaotic environment present anymore. "Dash, give them a speed boost." Sunset said to her apprentice, who nodded with a slight grimace. "If you're all ready, there's no time to lose." She finished, before closing her eyes and focusing her power. At that point, if one looked at the sky, they would note that the sun was high up, in a position that would indicate a time of three o'clock in the afternoon, but then it started to move, descending on the sky as if time had accelerated, all under the control of the Knight. Sunset had realized that, if she wanted to suppress the powerful sealing magic, there was no way she could afford to use anything less than her absolute full strength. The sun finally reached it's destination, the point where most of it was concealed behind the horizon. It was the scene that was known as a "sunset". "Sunset Domain." The eponymous Knight declared, and the light of the sun turned into pure destructive power. There was no explosion, no sound and nothing else that would reveal just how amazingly powerful the attack was, except that, after the instant was over, one could see that the whole white mass seemed to have been incinerated. That actually managed to feat of causing that terrifying mist to stop moving completely, showing just how amazingly powerful Sunset's full strength actually was. Still, she realized that it wouldn't take long before the seal magic recovered completely, which was why she had Trixie for the follow up. "Illusion Realm: Antithethical Seal." Was the declaration of the illusionist, who also triggered two of the energy focuses within her body, spending them to be able to pay the price for such an energy intensive technique. Taking advantage of the weakened state of the white mist, that spell tricked the sealing magic into splitting into two halves in opposition, trying to seal each other but never quite managing due to their exactly equal strengths. At the same time as Sunset was unleashing her power, Rarity was preparing her own move. "Four Elements Become Four Layers..." She chanted with a clear voice "Four Layers Join as One..." Above her, a new "road" was forming, but this time she made four paper-thin planes of the four elements, each of them covered in a multitude of magical formations, all designed to fuse together. "Pathmaker Artefact: Condense!" And she combined the four, joining them together. They spun and bent upwards like the petals of a flower, unweaving into elemental lines that wove themselves together in complex patterns and forming a golden path in the air. When it was over, Trixie's spell had just finished as well, so Rarity dropped the road on top of the sealing mist. "Pegasus Magic: Wind Charge..." Rainbow Dash declared, and then started sucking in an immense amount of air into her lungs, so much that she only had enough room because her magic also increased the pressure on the air to the point it turned into liquid, thus reducing its volume. Fluttershy, having already rebuilt her aura, landed at the beginning of Rarity's road, with the two chaos-using Knights holding onto her sides. Then Rainbow Dash unleashed her wind. It was like a very contained hurricane, propelling Fluttershy forward with an extreme acceleration, which only became more extreme as Pinkie and Twilight pushed against the road with their legs like they were trying to do flash steps. Rainbow Dash started coughing, her injuries throbbing due to the effort of that spell. But it was very worth it, the combination of the three Knights managing to get halfway through their path by the time the sealing mist recovered from Sunset and Trixie's efforts. They were four fifths of the way there by the time even Rarity's special road was finally subsumed by the seal, and they kept going even without a road for half of that last fifth before Twilight and Pinkie could not resist anymore. So Fluttershy did her part, diving into the deepest part of the sealing mist, quite near to the portal, just to hold it back and allow the two others to do their job. "Now!" Twilight shouted, and Pinkie grabbed onto her hoof and threw her straight through the portal. She had a dark expression on her face as she did so, but it really couldn't be helped. To close such a portal, the only thing they could do was attacking it from both sides, and the only one who could possibly return after being trapped in such a distant dimension was Twilight, for many reasons. Pinkie herself took a few more steps and stopped right in front of the portal, close enough that she and Twilight could touch if they reached forward with their hooves. Then the two unleashed their energy and used their prepared spell: "Combination Chaos: Shatter!" They spoke in unison, then extended their right forelegs and held them together at the very space of the portal, the boundary between dimensions. Then they exploded, the immense energy they had gathered reacting together like a million explosives going off all at once, but most of the energy was contained by the portal, disturbing the massive chaotic magic holding it together and causing that spatial fold to shatter. The remaining energy blew Pinkie and Twilight backwards in addition to destroying their touching hooves, but it was a minor injury for them. Pinkie landed on the sealing mist, and realized that it was rapidly weakening, so the Knight wasn't surprised when she looked up to see the portal breaking apart into nothingness, leaving said mist isolated from its power source. And it was so fast that Pinkie barely had time to blink before the portal was completely gone. And yet, that wasn't the end. As soon as the portal disappeared, the chaotic mage could feel that the energy of chaos that made it up hadn't disappeared, but rather condensed back up into a new shard of chaos. And before Pinkie could even try to do anything against it, that shard followed Fluttershy's example and dove into the mist. At that moment, Pinkie realized what was about to happen, and tried to focus her power to cast a spell to try and prevent it, but she was ultimately too slow. The shard of chaos took advantage of the weakened state of the sealing mist and overtook it, gaining control. It started sucking the white magic into itself while travelling through the mist at extreme speeds. In the blink of an eye, a third of the white had already been devoured, leaving Fluttershy floating dazily in the air and Pinkie Pie in freefall. Then it became even faster. Another blink, and the mist was gone, revealing the shard had morphed into a strange triangular arrow, sharp as a fang and carrying a pure feeling of deadliness. Only one Knight could react fast enough to attack it, and it was Sunset. There was no time to declare spells, so she attacked it with the purest magic of her Essence Heart state, using the suppression and sealing points of view to create a full complex of techniques in order to attack whatever weakness that arrow had. They barely slowed it down. Without alternative, Sunset forcefully teleported herself into the path of the arrow, knowing she was the only one who had even the slightest chance of surviving a direct attack from that thing. The transformed Knight released her power and raised every defense she had, blocking with her life on the line. The arrow dodged her, and flew straight at its true target: Rarity. The unicorn barely had time to do anythng. She slashed at the arrow with unformed magic to no effect, and then... Somepony appeared in front of her. It was Rainbow Dash. The arrow sunk into her like a fish sinking into the ocean. There was no sound, no explosion, but Rainbow Dash simply started falling from the air, her eyes empty of life. +0+ On the other side, Twilight saw the portal vanishing, and immediately tried to contact Fluttershy. That was the main reason why she had decided on such a dangerous plan. The pegasus had previously managed to reach Twilight's soul despite the situation of that time dimension where she had been lost. Thanks to their connection, the Knight only needed to be able to follow her partner's soul back through the worlds and into her home dimension. Of course, only was not the best word to use, given that even a master in chaos magic like Twilight would be hard-pressed to cover all that ground, but the probability was still high enough for her tastes. However, as soon as she tried to make the connection, Twilight realized that it was impossible. She had underestimated the might of the origin point of the seal. The magic they had faced was merely some uncontrolled power that had leaked into their dimension. The true sealing magic that came from that dimension was something that was beyond imagination. Specifically, Twilight couldn't contact Fluttershy because of the nature of that seal, something she had finally managed to understand based on the sheer power that surrounded her. It made the intent of that magic not only obvious, but completely impossible to ignore, and it could be described by a mere three words: Eternal World Seal. It was magic to seal away the entire world for eternity. The level of power needed for something like that was beyond anything that Twilight could have ever expected to come across. In a way, she could be considered lucky to be able to experience such a thing. Even Discord, the most powerful existence of her world would only qualify as an insect in comparison. And now that Twilight was inside, she was considered as part of the world, so the seal would not allow her to leave or even to send her magic outside. The Knight did not despair, and instead simply turned and began to look around her location, never losing hope of finding some way of getting back home. The place she was in was pure emptiness, a space without any matter or energy, and "nearby" (but it could also be infinitely far away) was the seal magic itself, an infinite wall of white. It extended in all directions as far as the eye could see, as far as the soul could sense, and even farther away. And yet, Twilight's eye was drawn towards one spot on the wall that didn't look to be any different from the others at first glance. A second look revealed the reason why: That one particular spot was the origin point of the entire spell, and when Twilight looked closer, she realized that there was something in that wall, potentially the entity responsible for the spell. It could be said that what happened next was inevitable. Twilight had to check for any possible chance of getting back home, but by doing so, the Knight did something she should not have done. She looked closely at the entity.