Night Patrol 2 chapter 46
By Foxgear
“Daddy, are you doing to be ok?” Asked Skaggi, clinging to the side of her father’s bed, her bright yellow eyes wet with slowly dripping tears. She snorted loudly, fiercely rubbing her red and puffy eyes. Her efforts were wasted as fresh tears and snot drip down her face.
Laying on his back, Sombra breathed slowly, each breath long and wheezing, his face sunken more than before. He patted the space next to him, prompting Skaggi to climb onto the bed and cuddle next to him. Her icy cold skin made him shiver; usually, his youngest’s power would be too much for him, but in this case, he endured. Holding Skaggi with all his might, which was very little.
“Papa…” Sombra searched for words to say. Debating what he should even say. (The truth? A lie? Would either be better than the other?) “Papa doesn’t know.”
He felt Skaggi stiffen, huddling closer.
“Lady Skaggi, you're making your father cold.” Gleam said gently, approaching the bed to pull Skaggi away.
“Let her stay,” Sombra commanded sharply. “I’m feeling too hot anyway.”
Gleam checked the king’s temperature, grimacing, he was burning up! “You seem to have developed a fever, my lord.” A red glow from under Sombra’s sheets caught her attention. She narrowed her eyes and moved to pull the blankets back, but Sombra stopped her.
“Leave it be, Gleam.” The Dark King’s coat was sweating horribly, his fur gising. “It’s beyond hope.” He whispered.
The maid and lover bowed her head and stepped away from the King and Princess, standing beside Tundra and Skaggi’s new doll, Sweet Dreams, to observe from afar.
“What a fool.” The other maid said under her breath.
Gleam frowned deeply but chose to ignore her companion’s comment. Now was not the time to make a scene.
The King’s chambers grew silent, the soft snores of Skaggi the only profound sound. It remained this way for a long duration of time, giving those present a sense of peace.
Then the castle shook, dust falling from the ceiling. Sombra, who had fallen asleep, opened his eyes with a start, silent tears streaming down his face.
“Ombre…” he muttered in a pained croak. Skaggi stirred awake, looking a gasp at her father’s tears, for this was the first time she’s seen them. Sombra continued to speak, his voice low, “Not just him… Scath…”
The castle shook again, the rushing of hooves come from outside the door. The last of the guards left to support the front. Meaning the enemy was inside the castle. Sombra’s horn glowed faintly. He felt for his children, his tears growing steadier when he felt Schatten’s presence rush to the ballroom.
“Don’t do it, son, you’re smarter than that… don’t…” He choked on his words, coughing so violently he rose from his mattress.
“Daddy!”
“My lord!”
“Stop… Schatten… save him…” Sombra gasped out, but his voice was barely above a whisper, no pony could hear him. He closed his eyes in frustration, tears escaping like a broken dam. “Schatten.”
Schatten’s presence grew weaker and weaker and then faded to nothing. “No… my sons… what have you done?”
It hurt. Pain worse than any wound filled his heart. Anger drove him to rise up and he shouted to the heavens while weeping like a newborn. “You stupid fools! Why didn’t you run! Why… why…”
“Milord…” Gleam tried to approach the king but found she could not bring herself any closer.
Tundra had no such reservations. She marched right up to the King’s bed and slapped him! “Is this all it takes to break you? Pathetic!” She snarled.
Sombra touched the striked cheek, but his anger was replaced with a strange calm. “You’re right, Tundra.” He said softly, looking at the trembling Skaggi. Slowly and very painfully, Sombra rose out of bed, grunting loudly at the mere effort of trying to stand.
“Daddy?” Skaggi, confused and frightened, looked to her father for reassurance. His smile was far from it.
“This is my last order, take Skaggi and…” Sombra’s words froze in his throat. Eyes wide, he stared at the door and trembled at the presence on the other side. “Run…” He ordered, but his voice was too soft.
“Milord?”
“I said, run!” He shouted with everything he had, the door flying off its hinges.
What happened next played out in slow motion from the King’s perspective. Like everything was moving through honey. He saw the red Rinin, Fierce Fury, charging at him. The red dragon pony’s face twisted in a ferocious snarl as he burst into the room. A three more rinin followed in behind them and went for the captured thestral, and then THEY entered.
The Royal Sisters, Celestia, and Luna.
The sight of them made him sick. They haven’t aged since the last time he saw them, and they were stronger than ever before. He could see the taint of dark magic in their eyes. They didn’t say anything, no speech, no listing of his crimes, they laid their eyes on him and charged their horns.
(Who will get me first? The Rinin or the Sisters?) He wondered as all three of them closed in to end his life. Behind him, he heard screaming. It was stupid, but he looked back to see Gleam struggling with Skaggi to get away, while Tundra changed forward. Fierce Fury flew past Sombra, chopped down on Tundra’s neck, bringing her down like a lion. He thrashed his head around, ripping a massive chunk from the white/blue unicorn’s neck. Her yellow eyes were fixed on him though, a smirk on her lips, she appeared to be laughing.
Sombra didn’t turn back to the Princesses. No instead, with the last of his strength, he ran for Gleam and Skaggi. Two magic attacks hit him from behind, one lit his fur a flame, the other shot through his spine. He didn’t give up and continued to crawl while reaching out to his youngest child. Hoping to save her.
“Run, Skaggi, run…” Sombra fell to the floor beside Tundra, a shadow loomed over him, it was Fury, the red Rinin’s jaws wide open.
CRUNCH!
“DADDY!” Skaggi watched in absolute horror as the monster from her daddy’s bedtime stories, the red rinin, munched on her father’s neck in a bloody display of gore that was beyond her imagination. Trembling in Gleam’s embrace, she panned to her mother, Tundra, who laid dead on the floor like her daddy. Dying without ever acknowledging her.
“Mommy…”
Skaggi covered her ears, the room was filled with shouting, ponies the likes of which she’s only heard of stood over her father’s body. The Princesses. They looked as majestic and beautiful as her dad described, but she only saw monsters as they stood over daddy. Their sparking booted hooves caked with his blood. They were even kicking his body!
Then they looked at her. They were talking, but she couldn’t hear them, her fear so profound that everything, even Gleam’s shouts were nothing but ringing in her ears. Her little heart pounded against her ribcage, it was too much, all of it was too much!
She screamed!
Minutes earlier
“This is it,” Luna said softly, she and Celestia posted on either side of the door that leads to Sombra. The nodded silently to one another than to Fury. “Do it.”
The Red Rinin flame burst through the door, breaking it off its hinges and storming into the room. Kiri and two others went in after, and then they entered.
Everything happened to fast.
Kiri and his team retrieved Sweet Dreams, quickly exiting the room, Fury was jaws deep in some light blue, almost white, unicorn and Sombra was running towards a purple mare holding a little blue filly.
There was no time to think, only act. As one, the Princess fueled by their inner darkness and a thousand years of pent up emotions gunned Sombra down without a word. Celestia blasted him with fire, while Luna hit him with a focused blast in the spine. The Dark King fell, yelling something they couldn’t hear over the commotion of the crying filly.
Fury removed his teeth from the unicorn mare and sank his fangs into Sombra’s neck, finishing the kill.
“That seemed too easy, honestly,” Luna muttered; the room became filled with more of their soldiers. Celestia kicked Sombra’s corpse, to double-check, getting blood on her new boots.
“Why’d did he have to be so difficult.” Celestia lamented. “All this, for what in the end?”
While they processed that the Dark King was finally, truly dead, their attention was grabbed by the crying filly, shouting to Sombra’s dead body.
“DADDY!” She wailed, much to their shock.
Knowing they killed a father right in front of his child should have been traumatizing to the Princesses. At least that’s what ponies would think.
“I guess that makes this… the twentyish time.”
“Forty for me,” Luna said without pride.
“Forty? Really.”
“That two hundred year stretch where we separated back in the… well, it was a bloody time for me. So, what do we do with her?”
Celestia bowed her head, squeezing her eyes tight to push back the dark energy she had called on. Emotionally it made her feel worse about the killing, but yet she didn’t feel bad about it. (I’ll probably never will.)
As Celestia and Luna examined the filly and the mare holding her. Celestia was disturbed by how similar in appearance the maid was to Twilight or Twilight’s mother to be exact and other ponies she’s known through the years.
“I guess we have no choice…” Before the Sun Princess could finish, a powerful force of magic radiated at her feet. She and Luna looked down to see Sombra’s body being consumed by a bubbling red aura, the floor around him becoming lava. At the same time, Skaggi let out a banshee wail that literally froze them.
Not froze them like stunned them, but literary froze them, creating a layer of frost on their bodies. If not for Kira’s new armor and its auto-shield, they’d probably have frostbite. Speaking of frostbite, the entire room was caked in a thick layer of ice and snow. The temperature dropping by the second as Skaggi, surrounded by a literal ice storm, began to expand the vortex surrounding her. The castle swept up in a frigid tornado of ice and snow.
Together they teleported away, appearing on the outside balcony, Fury bursting through the window to join them. They thought being outside would be fine, but it was even colder!
“What is going on?” Luna shivered, the moisture of her breath turned into icicles before her eyes and dropped to the ground. All around them was a raging blizzard.
“The shield,” Celestia pointed to the darkened sky. “The shield around the city is gone! The winds of the frozen north are unrestrained!”
“Does that mean that filly controls it? How?”
The sisters didn’t get time to ponder. As suddenly as the ice, geysers of lava began erupting from the ground! One formed beneath them, accompanied by a roaring voice that boomed like thunder.
“SOLARIS! I WILL KILL YOU, YOU TRAITOR!”
From the lava emerged a being that shouldn’t be, in its barrel, pulsed the crimson Alicorn Amulet, its body dark red, almost black, with glowing orange cracks running throughout its coat. It was large, it was powerful, it was the Alicorn of Magma, Vulcan.
“Solaris!” Roared Vulcan, flinging lava from every geyser at the sisters. Frantically the two sisters dodged, their auto-shields activating far more then they liked as they were unable to avoid being hit.
“Sister! What’s going on!” Luna screamed both as fire and ice attacked her. Hail, shaped like spear tips, rained down on them, adding to their problems.
“I don’t know! I never put an Alicorn Amulet in a corpse before!”
During their bickering part of Sombra’s castle shattered and the eye of the storm containing Skaggi rose into the sky, the blizzard worsened a haunting whinny filled the air. The top of the tornado began to change shape, taking the form of a giant wendigo.
Luna had enough. “What the actual mother’s fucking teat! IS GOING ON!”
“Solaris!” Vulcan roared, a vast amount of lava that engulfed the castle flowed towards him. Creating a giant lava version of himself. The Lava replica flung its forelegs, shooting flaming rain everywhere. The entire area shifted between lava and ice by the minute by the two elemental titans.
The royal sisters produced their new weapons, calling upon their inner darkness to boost their powers. Celestia raised her ax to the sky, creating a miniature sun above the tip, while Luna’s body was enveloped by a cloak of darkness.
Celestia’s spell hit the wendigo, creating a massive burst of scorching steam, the wendigo wailed unleashing high-pitched scream of cold wind from its mouth.
Luna meanwhile created claws the size of a giant’s fist with her dark cloak, grabbing Vulcan’s molten avatar by the neck. The head of lava severed from the body, red lava spilling over her wicked claws, a new head forming beneath her grip.
“Ragh… Polarized Moons!” Charging her steel fans with opposing gravities, she sent them into molten Titan, the body of lava began to implode, being sucked into a black hole. Half of it shrunk by the time the spell’s duration ended. Luna recalled her fans, the Nippon crafted weapons glowing red hot.
“We can’t do this on our own, sister!” Luna shouted, the Lava Titan reforming almost instantly.
Celestia flew up beside her, a barrage of basketball-sized suns pelted the Ice Titan, panting for breath Celestia cringed as smoke rising from her horn. “I agree.”
A silver glint streaked zoomed by, “Oki Kiru!” A blade of Jade energy sliced through the Lava Titan, the top potion flying upward as typhoon force wind whirled around it. Kira raced by, running through the sky via the clouds beneath her feet. She drew her second katana and made an X with them. “Double Killing Strike!”
A jade X flew at the Lava Titan, splattering the molten beast everywhere. In the center of it, its puppeteer was revealed. Vulcan roared, the Lava bending to his will. Working quickly to reform the Titan.
“Let’s finish him now!” Kira ordered her and the sisters geared up an all-out attack, only for the Ice Titan to attack them.
“GIVE BACK DADDY!” The Blue Titan screamed, lashed out at the sisters. “Give back, daddy!”
The trio scattered, shooting smaller attacks to keep the Ice Titan at bay, but that gave the Lava Titan ample time to reform. The three rulers flew high, far away from the Titans, the red and blue monsters finally noticing each other.
“So, when did this become a Kaiju fight?” Kira asked the sisters, sounding exhausted. The claws holding her katana shook violently, covered in icicles. “At least that explains the ice and the lava.” The Queen of Nippon’s eyes narrowed as the two Titan’s moved away from each other. “Great, so much for fire and ice being natural enemies.”
Whatever remained of Sombra’s castle was divided by rivers of lava and peaks of frozen ice. The two elemental beings seemingly decided to stay away from each other.
“Where did these things even come from?” Kira directed her question at the two sisters. Who looked away with a cross of guilt and shame on their faces?
“The ice titan is Sombra’s youngest daughter, Skaggi, we killed Sombra right in front of her, while Fury… it was a three pony deal, I guess.” Luna explained karma had never whipped around this fast before. “As the for the Lava Titan… I don’t know. Do you truly not know Celestia?”
Celestia sighed, “It’s only a theory, but it’s possible when Sombra died, the Spirit of the Alicorn Amulet revived and took over his body. In this, cause, it’s the Alicorn of Magma, Vulcan.”
“And why is he screaming mother’s name and calling her a traitor?” Luna pressed.
“Because,” Celestia said resigned, “Mind you, I was very young, but Mother killed him. The short version is there was a war, and they were on opposite sides. You were barely born, Luna.”
Kira snorted, sending lighting through her body to try and warm up. “Sounds like an interesting talk for later, but we need to deal with these monsters now.”
Suddenly a bright shining light came from below, Sixes rocketed through the sky, carrying a shining gold spear in his claw. He reared back and roared, “SPEAR OF SOLARIS!”
The Spear hit the Ice Titan, moments later the entire Nippon Air Fleet fired every cannon from every ship, Rinin formed rank breathing fire, lightning, plasma, and ice, magic flack filled the sky, and gem blasters roared, everypony giving everything they had against the Titans.
Celestia’s magic grip tightened around the handle of her Ax. “We can’t leave this all to them, now can we?”
“Indeed, we cannot sister,” Luna smiled.
The Fire and Ice Titans came roaring out of the smoke, somehow powering through the all-out barrage.
“Let’s do this!”
“Concentrate on fighting to your strength!” Sixes roared, leading the charge around the Ice titan. Every Rinin that breathed some manner of fire behind him. They encircled the Capricorn looking monster, avoiding it’ freezing breath and the snow twister that was its tail. As one, they all spewed fire, lava, and everything in between, creating a literal tornado of flame around the Ice titan.
Ruby Blaze, her entire body aflame, tackled the Titan by the muzzle. The oversized Rinin appearing small by the Titan’s sheer size. She barely managed to wrangle her forelegs around the being before tossed aside.
“I can’t believe that little foal turned into that!” Fury growled as they made another pass.
The Ice Titan roared, unleashing a cold wave of icy wind that sent them all spiraling through the sky. Those that found their barring continued to attack, launching another barrage of fire breath, only this time the flames didn’t reach. The fire dwindled to nothing, not even producing steam.
“What happened?” Sixes clamped his jaw tight to stop his teeth from chattering. He didn’t think it was possible, but it was even colder now! Ice was beginning to form on his wings. He tapped his gemcom. “Everypony, fly over to the lava!”
Fleeing in mass, the chilled Rinin let out a heavy sigh as they entered the sky over the lava pools. The rising heat instantly reviving them. While the fire breathers warmed themselves, they watched their lightning and ice breathing kin rally against the Fire Titan.
They were fairing about the same.
“Don’t give in!” Hazel, upon a pile of floating amber, commanded. Shooting a Gungnir shot through the Lava Titan’s heart. The attack formed a massive hole, big enough for a pony to fly through before rapidly closing. The variety of other lightning breaths did the same, with the water breathers creating blasts of steam explosions on the creature’s surface.
“Hey, Cold Stone, how are you holding up?” Sixes approached the ice breather rinin, the rinin in question slick with sweat. Cold inhaled and tried to breathe ice, only to spit droplets of spit between his dry lips.
“Not, great.” The Ice rinin wheezed like he just smoked a whole pack of smokes. “I need water.”
Sixes patted him on the back, “Try and dry off and get back to the Emerald Cutter. Hopefully, you won’t freeze on the way back.”
Cold Stone nodded, gathering others who were in similar condition and fell back.
“We’re not causing any significant damage,” Essex stated the obvious, hoovering beside him. “A smarter choice might be us Lava breathers going and gutting the guy puppeteering that thing.”
“We don’t have Lava immunity,” He drawled.
“But, we do have resistance.” Essex reminded him. “We can do a quick slash and run through the body. We might get lucky.”
“I’d give us thirty seconds before we start to feel the heat and burn.” He spat five small pieces of gold in his palm, crafting five rings. “These should make it fifty.”
Essex took the magic accessory and slipped it on the claw next to her wedding ring. “Better than nothing, I guess.”
Passing the rings out to Ruby, Fury, and a Rinin named Effie. The four Lava breathers and Fury slipped on their new accessories and flew in a V formation at the Lava Titan. They broke through the outer crust, and into a thick orange world that made it seem like they were flying through orange juice. Except it was really, really, hot!
None of them could speak, but Essex pointed to the only other being inside the Lava monster. The group was surprised to see a Crimson Alicorn at the center, but that didn’t deter them. Readying their claws, they swam for the Alicorn, each one taking their chance to strike.
Vulcan paid them little mind, deflecting their attacks one after the other, knocking them all away. At that time, their rings shattered, and they all made a break for the outside. The Crimson Alicorn sent arms of Lava after them chasing after them as they exited the body.
“Spit half-cooked lava!” Sixes ordered, the Lava breathers coughed up black balls of hardened lava-rock to block the arms, finishing their escape.
Flying away, the five rinin watched as the Lava Titan lumbered through rivers of molten rock, bellowing, “SOLARIS!” About every minute, shooting fireballs from its body like catapult shots. The fireballs flew into the blizzard, spreading like a red blight across the frozen white land.
“Can we really not get these two to just kill each other?” Essex vexed as they regrouped with the larger unit. Over two hundred Equestrian and Nippon Rinin were assembled to fight the colossal monsters. Only they could withstand the heat and cold that would kill a pegasus, and the rivers of molten fire stopped any ground troops from advancing closer.
“Try softening them with the cannons again,” Sixes said to Kiri, who radioed for the ships to resume firing. The platoon of dragon ponies hung back and watched the artillery strikes assault the two monsters to little effect.
The Ice Titan, controlled by Skaggi, began constructing a thick wall of ice to block the artillery shells. Practically making a fortress of her own. Meanwhile, the rounds falling on Vulcan flew through the lava beasts’ body, some exploding after exiting and some shooting into the surrounding lake of lava exploding way off target. Either way, neither Titan seemed to mind barrage that had leveled the city just a few hours prior.
“Could we enchant a shell with ice to shoot at the Lava Titan and fire enhanced ones at Skaggi?”
Kiri shot down the idea, “Too risky, that would make the shells unstable. They’d probably explode before hitting the target or inside the barrels.”
“So, what do we do, I’m open to suggestions.”
Two epic explosions went off, they stopped bantering to watch two massive balls of energy, one black and one yellow. Each one pressed down on the two Titans, only to fizzle out.
Seconds later, Luna and Celestia appeared from a teleport, each of them looking more sinister than usual. Both of them seemingly on the verge of turning full dark. Luna hissed like a bat pony, sporting fangs, while Celestia also sported a pair of shiny new sharp teeth.
Sixes spat gold, crafted a set of looped chain and tossed them around the sisters’ necks like he was playing ring toss. Their nightmarish featured vanished, as did all their magic. The Princesses dropped like rocks, and the others swooped to catch them. The chains around their necks blackened, producing dark smoke, before disintegrating to nothing.
“Thank you, Sixes,” Celestia sighed deeply. “I was afraid we dabbled too far into the darkness this time.”
“Where’s Kira?” He asked, ignoring the Sun Princess’s gratitude.
A long silver beam of lightning cut through the lava, sending it splattering on the Ice Titan. Causing it to shriek and lash out at its elemental opposite. The silver streak continued to fly like it was running on air, barely a blink in the eye. Several more oversized slashes kicked up lava, spilling it on Skaggi. She roared and unleashed a blast of ice at Vulcan, which caused him to counterattack. Prompting a battle between the two.
Kira came to a stop in front of them, standing on six floating clouds, looking like a Kirin. “That should buy us some time.” She said with a heavy sigh, acting her age for the first time today. “Ugh, can you youngsters do something now? This old nag needs a nap after that. Kiri go kill one of those for grandma.”
The Nippon Prince’s eyes widened at the tall order. Still, he drew his swords without hesitation. A wild grin broke across his lips. “I’ll need a bigger pole to mount that head.”
Before he could fly off, Celestia restrained him with her magic. “Whoa, there godson, let's think this through. You need to remember that what we see are just oversized avatars. The ponies inside controlling them are the real target.”
“A surgical strike would be more effective then.” The Nippon Prince acknowledged, Celestia smiled and nodded, but her smile faded, as did any other when they watched the two giant elementals exchange blows. There wasn’t any way to go about defeating the monsters.
“Lightning seemed like it worked to make an opening.” Sixes said after some time had passed. “Maybe if we shoot enough of it, a strike team can get inside and kill…”
“Vulcan,” Celestia informed.
“Right, Vulcan.”
“Some wind magic might work too. We could make a tunnel by stirring the lava around.” Luna suggested. “Wind isn’t my first choice for magic, barely a third, but if it proves useful, I’ll bruise myself to use it.”
“Alright, alright, sounds like we got half a plan. Let’s try it out.” Shamrock egged on. “Let’s do this! I say we go for the Vulcan first!”
“He is the easier of the two to damage,” Luna commented as the two elemental opposites began to move away from each other again, seemingly calling another truce. “Skaggi disappeared into the storm! Let’s move out! Celestia, try and hold its attention!”
They all flew headlong into the fight. Princess Celestia teleported ahead, instantly gaining Vulcan’s attention. He flung everything he could at her, filling the sky with fire. The Auto shield of her armor activated, and Celestia activated the gem thrusters to try and stay ahead of the lava flak.
Lightning arced across the sky as every Lightning Rinin charged up for a combined breath attack, Triple Thunder and Hazel Thunder at the front. Ropes of electricity connected the fifty or more Rinin creating a bright blinding blue arc. Luckily Vulcan remained fixated on Celestia.
“Locked on!” Triple shouted.
Hazel reared back, directing the massive surge with her horn, “FIRE!”
Every Lightning Rinin let loose their breath attack, charged to the point that it looked like fifty laser beams firing at once. The energy beams sliced and diced the Lava Avatar, turning it into blobs of floating magma. In the center of it all was a startled Vulcan.
“Kiri!”
“At once!”
Kira and Kiri flashed forward in streaks of white and silver. Appearing to teleport across the battlefield and right up to Vulcan. Kira struck first, swinging both her swords, cutting of the Alicorn’s head and wings. Kiri aimed for the amulet; his lightning enhanced slash encountered resistance in the form of red barrier that sprang up around the gem. He continued to push, even as Vulcan began to reform, lava closing in around him.
“Kiri!” With little choice, Kira grabbed her stubborn Grandson before he could be consumed by the lava. The others shot lightning bolts to keep their path open, but it wasn’t enough, and the lava quickly formed around them. “Eight virtues!”
One of the orbs orbiting Kira shot ahead, a rope of energy traveled between it and the other spheres, and slingshot them out of danger.
“Allies of Solaris! You too shall fear my wrath!” Vulcan roared, reforming his Titan. This time multiple heads were formed, each one shooting rivers of lava from its mouth like a fire hydrant, while fireballs shot from the surface of its body.
“Get back!” Sixes and the other fired everything they had to counteract Vulcan’s attack. The flak was so thick that they had no choice to but fly higher and higher. They were pushed back to the point of entering the blizzard. “Shit.”
Spiting Lava Sixes created a makeshift lava rock shield to block the fireballs. Other Lava breathers followed his lead and made shields for the others. Unfortunately, that didn’t solve their problem as Vulcan redoubled his attacks.
Suddenly Luna’s voice boomed over the battlefield, thick with the undertones of Nightmare Moon, “Let darkness turn to night and night to darkness, blot out the light of the stars and cast the world in an endless, eternal void, Greater Noctis Stella!” A purple massive of energy the size of beach ball flew at Vulcan, absorbing everything in its wake. The ball grew inside, the surface bubble like boiling poison.
Vulcan’s three heads gave the attack its full attention pouring gallons of molten rock into the orb, making it swell in size and imploded before hitting the Fire Titan. The lake of Lava began to drain as Noctis Stella touched the ground, sucking up everything in its wake, a massive crater devoid of lava appeared before being filled again.
“DAMMIT!” Luna cursed to the heavens; her most significant attack once again negated. Celestia meanwhile could only seeth. Her most potent spells were all fire-based, making her more than useless in this battle.
Hope was fading, victory seemed as far as the stars. Retreating would let the two Titan roam free, not an ideal solution. It was hardly a solution at all, but it would buy them time. The idea bounced between the sisters, factoring everything that happened, the losses they suffered. Maybe now was the time to cut their losses.
“Everypony re….”
Giant crystal spikes erupted from the lava lake, the shimmering blue crystals bled red, absorbing the molten liquid. Vulcan’s Titan began shrinking by the second. Everypony paused to look at the newcomer soaring across the sky.
Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.
The recovered fragments of the Crystal Heart orbited around the Alicorn of Love, sparkling with a brilliant blue light. As she zoomed by, the pieces held by Kira flew from her saddlebag and joined the pack. Celestia and Luna leaned forward with hope as the heart began to piece itself together into its original shape.
That hope was twisted to confusion when instead of reforming, the crystal heart shot into Cadence’s body and disappeared. Cadence’s body took on a drastic change, her dull multi-colored hair crystalized into a rainbow spectrum of blues, her body growing to nearly Luan’s size The most notable and perhaps the most critical difference was her power, it was almost five times higher than before.
Cadence had fully awakened as an Alicorn.
“Venus, Goddess of Love, calm thy lover’s wrath and soothe him with your whimsy, let his fires be snuffed by our desire and his mind at ease in our embrace! Venus’s Embrace!” Soft pink mist sprayed from Cadence’s horn. The little resistance Vulcan had been putting up was suddenly quelled, his titan melted away, leaving the Alicorn himself exposed with honey glazed eyes and… erect. A goofy pleased smile graced his lips as he embraced a pony that was not there. His soft lover’s coos too faint to be heard.
At this moment, the Princesses took their chance. Celestia flung her ax, while Luna hurled her iron fans, the three weapons converged, overcharged with magic, and hit Vulcan all at once. His body became a fine red mist, a mist that retook the form of Crimson Alicorn Amulet and chunks of Sombra’s corpse.
Both hit the ground, clattering against the black crusted surface, the lake of lava cooling at a phenomenal rate. Fury flew down to retrieve the amulet, letting the chunks of meat that was once Sombra roast on the ground.
With the surprise final boss defeated, everypony looked to the Princesses and then the looming Ice Titan that still remained. The blizzard grew worse as Skaggi continued to blindly rampage. The small heat zone created by Vulcan was quickly becoming overwhelmed.
“Once more!” Luna declared boldly flying toward the wall of snow and ice, but Celestia pulled her back, her expression darkened.
“No,” Celestia said quietly. “I… I’ll deal with this.”
Slowly the Sun Princess flew toward the storm, taking a deep, solemn breath for what she was about to do. Her hair ignited in flames, she pulled on the strength she’s spent the last thousand years cultivating and with no Elements of Harmony, no friends to worry about she let it her finite control slip away. Disappearing into the blizzard the next second.
To the onlookers, it looked like Celestia disappeared, swallowed by the storm, but seconds later, a vast dome of nothing appeared, a heat so intense that it made the lava seem cold by comparison brushed their faces. Some there that day would describe it as standing next to the sun.
Celestia flew through the storm unheeded, feeling free, for the lack of better word. Alone in the blizzard with no pony around, she could finally stretch her wings, in a sense. A chuckle escaped her when she noticed her wings were flame as well, even her hooves. It didn’t affect her. The flames were as part of her as her own skin. The heat radiating off her both felt like tension, leaving her muscles. Her precious sun reached out to her, begging for them to become one.
“Not yet,” She chuckled, but truthfully if she stayed in this form too long, they would. To put it more precise terms, she would become the sun in a sense, and possibly destroy a good chunk of the world. (Not all of it.) She mused. (That would arrogant to think I alone could destroy the world, but a quarter of it? Maybe all of Equestria? Well… I’m certainly not about to test that theory.)
Skaggi’s Ice Titan was before her now. It swiped at her, but the offending leg was vaporized by the super-heated air, causing an explosion. Celestia continued to approach Skaggi, the Ice Titan shrinking away, but she pressed on, slipping through the tornado that acted like the Titan’s tail.
(I thought it was a Wendigo, but looking at it again, it’s more like a siren.) Now inside Celestia found Skaggi floating in the eye of the storm, her eyes whited out with frozen tears running down her face. She flew up the small foal, her heat warming young filly’s cries so they could flow properly.
“I… want…. Daddy…” Skaggi said through chattering teeth.
“Poor girl, you can’t withstand your own power, can you?” Celestia embraced the crying foal, who may be out of instinct, clung to her. “There, there, everything will be alright now. I promise.”
Skaggi looked up her, her eyes red from crying, “Will you take me to Daddy? And Mommy?”
“Yes,” Celestia said softly, holding the child closer, Skaggi nuzzled against her fur with a deep sigh.
“What is this… feeling? I’ve never felt it before.” Skaggi’s voice became raspy, her body beginning to melt like a popsicle.
“It’s warmth.” Celestia croaked with tears streaming down her cheeks, holding Skaggi tighter. “Some say it’s what love feels like, and it’ll take you to your mommy and daddy, I promise.”
“Really… so… this…is… warmth… it feels nice…” Skaggi’s disappeared, her cold overpowered by the heat. There was nothing left, not even a spec of ash. Celestia floated in alone in the dissipating storm system, staring up at the rays that shined down on her, parting the black clouds above the empire.
Powerful emotions tugged on her heart, and she cried, wailing at the life she snuffed out.
When Celestia returned to the others, she was silent, landing on the Emerald Cutter with the sun shining triumphantly behind her. Unable to conjure up any sort of cheer, “It’s over, we won.” Her words were hallowed, and she kept her gaze downcast as everypony celebrated. Kira stopped her, pulled her aside, and shoved the Princess into her own quarters.
“Rest up. There’s still a lot to do.”
“Ok…” Was Celestia’s only response as the door closed, whatever may come next, one thing was for sure. The Crystal War was finally over. Sombra was defeated at last. At what cost, though? “Tomorrow. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I’ve… no… we have earned that much.”
Celestia laid down her head on the pillow, utterly exhausted and drained of nearly everything physically, mentally, and emotionally. So much so that her sister had no trouble slipping into her dream world and gifting her the most beautiful dream in the last thousand years.
“Thank you, Luna…” Celestia mumbled, the Night Princess herself beside the bed to hear it.
“Anytime, sister, anytime,” Luna said while stroking Celestia’s hair, humming a soft lullaby.
Stat Card: Kira
Stat card 5: Emerald Cutter
Stat Card 6: Overheat