Episode 114: Apples Together
While he knew far better than to take his eyes off of Celestia, even as she was fully occupied by defending herself against his swarm of lethally poisonous flies, Grogar still had his attention arrested away for a moment by the powerful emanations of spiritual pressure that he could sense in the distance. One didn’t even need vastly superior eyesight or spiritual senses to see the storm-like distortions in the sky, some distance to the north west of the mountainside he and Celestia were fighting upon. One particularly large detonation of colliding spirit energies caught his attention, for he sensed not only the distinct distortion of another Espada-level Arrancar releasing a Gran Rey Cero, but he could tell the distinct flavor of that reiatsu. A twitch of a smirk touched his now more youthful face, his still organic left eye shining with satisfaction while the unique mechanics of his cybernetic eye fed fresh data into his mind.
It was either going to be Lament, or Torch that would come to that pup’s aid. Either way, it would have benefited me, but Lament is the more fortuitous result. Torch I can deal with on my own time. This experiment, on the other hand, has always needed conditions that have proven difficult to engineer.
It was just a fact of scientific pursuit that Grogar had learned to accept over the millennia that one couldn’t always control the progress of experimentation. One could try to create ideal conditions to create desired results, but oftentimes there were simply too many unpredictable and uncontrolled factors to be accurately accounted for. That was why he’d long ago adopted a fairly loose style in his experimentation, often tossing his test subjects to the proverbial winds of fate and observed results from a distance, patiently awaiting opportunities to further the experiment.
Adagio was just his latest project, and as much as she likely considered herself free of him, even she was just another experiment he’d allowed out into the world to act according to her own whims, for that was exactly the kind of conditions he’d learned yielded the most promising results. The artificial siren gem pulsing in his chest was proof enough of that. But that didn’t mean she was his only ongoing project. Far from it.
And it looked like another project from a number of years ago was in a position to bear fruit.
Her exemplary speed and skill in the Soul Reaper hand-to-hand arts was allowing her to keep the relentless dark cloud of disgustingly modified insects at bay, but their sharp drill-like legs had managed to score a number of hits upon her even as she ended up smashing hundreds from the swarm. Celestia had felt the painful burn of poison in her blood, and was countering it with an active detoxing Kido that required the use of one of her hands placed over her heart to continuously infuse the Kido’s healing reiryoku through her bloodstream.
Fortunately that didn’t stop her from building an ever growing amount of spiritual energy in her legs, even as she used them to kick away dozens of the swarming, bloated flies at once with movements generating greater and greater levels of wind force. By now her legs held an intense aura of flowing gold reiatsu, and coils of air were swirling around her calves and feet now in an ever present sheath of wind.
Grogar was vaguely familiar with the technique, having compiled his own files on this move from previous Soul Reapers who’d utilized it, although rarely to the same degree of built up spirit energy that he now sensed, and never before with the legs as the focal point rather than the hands.
Quickly he gestured with the hook-blade staff he carried, commanding the flies of his swarm to induce a certain chemical reaction in their bodies that would take their inner toxins and hyper-stimulate them to explode. As one, the entire swarm halted and surrounded Celestia in a condensed dome, and then began popping like balloons. Wet squelching noises filled the air as a literal rain of horrific toxin flooded down at Celestia, which would surely coat in her a lethal bath of poison.
However at the same instant Celestia crouched down, and the reiatsu from her legs exploded outward.
“Shunko Saikuron!” (Flash Cry Cyclone)
Unbelievably powerful wind surged out from Celestia’s legs alongside a cyclone of swirling gold energy as she did a handstand and proceeded to perform a spinning kick with both legs, so fast that her legs were blurred like the blades of a helicopter. The rain of toxins were utterly engulfed and blown away by the sudden dome-shaped burst of cutting wind and destructive spirit energy, and Grogar was forced to zip backwards with Sonido to try to avoid the fast expanding dome as it ate up a chunk of the mountainside. Even in his released form, Grogar couldn't avoid the cutting edge of the dome's winds, his body slammed by air forces far beyond any conventional typhoon. The impact sent the Espada spinning, wrenching his limb and smashing him into the mountain slope. Groaning, he got up, momentarily amazed that Celestia was capable of producing an attack of that magnitude without her Zanpaktou. Had he been caught in the epicenter rather than at the edge, the damage would have been much more severe. Even now, great chunks of rock were being torn from the ground by the cyclone of wind and thrown across the slope, smashing around the mountain at random. One chunk the size of a pickup truck came flying at Grogar, who contemptuously smashed it aside with a one handed swipe from his Zanpaktou.
As the winds died down and the dome dissipated, he saw Celestia standing on the air at the apex of the semi-circular chunk of ground her technique had ripped out of the mountain. She still had one hand over her heart, glowing faintly blueish green as she continued to negate the poison still in her veins, but for the moment his swarm was gone.
It’d take a minute or so for his body to manufacture more for him to spit out, but Grogar was in no real rush. His stamina was far from flagging, and while Celestia didn’t look particularly tired yet either, his plan had never been to beat her in a physical contest. He was just biding his time. This “battle” had been decided the moment he’d successfully separated her from her Zanpaktou. It was just a matter of time until Celestia realized it.
Perhaps sensing his thoughts, or perhaps just finding his calm demeanor annoying, Celestia wasted no time in using her free hand to point at him, her eyes glittering dangerously. White sparks of lightning gathered around the point of her finger, then spread out in a line to either side of her.
“Hado Number Eighty Nine: Raijin no Shokei Ono!" (Thunder God's Executing Axe)
Grogar suppressed yet another sparking sensation in his withered heart that came dangerously close to admiration. He did consider it an unfortunate failing of Hollow evolutionary traits that their reiatsu wasn’t suited to the finely tuned reiryoku manipulation that could produce such a wide variety of Kido spells the Soul Reapers enjoyed. He’d experimented with trying to give Arrancar more versatile power sets, but the results had always been disappointing, so he’d moved on to different research. Admittedly the resurgence of the power known as Fullbring among the humans intrigued him, since it was still born somewhat of Hollow energy. It would be nice to have one of those girls to study, but that was not an immediate objective any longer.
He readied himself as the line of white electricity Celestia had summoned, which had grown to about ten meters wide on either side of her, then flew up like a sheet and from that crackling expanse of white a giant arm emerged. Formed purely from the raw essence of spiritual infused lightning, this arm moved with sudden speed and purpose as it came crashing down at Grogar. In that same movement, the arm’s hand grasped the air, and a giant axe of thunderous lightning formed, soaring down much like the executioner’s axe of the Kido’s namesake.
Such speed surpassed Grogar’s own, so while he did throw himself up and back in a burst of high-speed Sonido, the axe’s impact created a flare of lightning forks that electrified the air for dozens of meters and jolted the Espada with uncountable volts of energy. His body managed to weather the storm, but for a moment he was wracked with spasms of pain and his senses were blanked out. Only long centuries of experience allowed him to continue evading backwards until his senses recovered a second later, his body still smoking from the brush with the lightning axe. The portions of his body that had a mechanical appearance fared better than his flesh, continuing to pump and turn inside him. These modifications might have looked like technological mad science, but their construction was purely of Hollow reishi, much like the machines he used in his laboratories. All of it were modifications he’d added to his Resurreccion as a means to empower himself further. Prior to such augmentation a Kido like what Celestia had just used might have done much worse to him.
The artificial siren gem retained a few sparks of the Kido’s lightning as well, and Grogar briefly examined the data scrolling across his cybernetic eye. It seemed even partial contact with other energy sources allowed for a small siphoning effect. Interesting, but he had yet to put the gem to it’s real test. Celestia was a tempting target, but not ideal, given her capacity for resistance. No, he had a different target in mind.
Speaking of which, if his estimations on the strength of the Caja Negacion his modified Hollow had created were accurate, his ticket out of this fight should be appearing soon. Celestia, having finally purged the poison from her blood completely at this point, took her hand away from her heart and assumed an aggressive stance. She kicked off the ground, cracking it beneath her as she soared towards him, fists poised to strike and charged with auras of gold reiatsu.
Grogar readied himself to receive her attacks, but just as he’d calculated, the time had come.
A cracking noise that reverberrated like the breaking of an enormous mirror filled the air. A hole in reality was torn out a little further up the mountain, the air showing cracks as a jet of incredibly hot, pure white flames raged out. The heat was so intense that practically all moisture on the mountain burned away in an instant from just that one jet of bright, intense plasma. The spiritual pressure that came with it was unmistakable as well. Shinryu Taiyo was breaking free of the Caja Negación sub-dimension, using raw reiatsu and the power of its flames to incinerate the barrier between the prison dimension and the real world.
Only the power on display from the Zanpaktou was much stronger than even it’s impressive Shikai. Indeed, with its Shikai, Shinryu Taiyo shouldn’t have been able to break free for at least half an hour to an hour.
Celestia halted in her tracks, eyes shuddering as she looked at the jet of plasma that had torn a hole in reality. Grogar smiled fully at her.
“Oh, looks like your loyal Zanpaktou is struggling quite hard to return to you, Captain Celestia,” he said, “I imagine you must be overjoyed. Why, with that kind of power, you could destroy me rather quickly, couldn’t you?”
Celestia was silent for a moment, until her voice came out in a pained gasp, “...Shinryu, you idiot.”
Grogar adopted a tone of mock confusion, “It seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? So eager to return to fight by your side, likely frightened and enraged by being separated from you, it seems like your Zanpaktou has gone and activated their Bankai on their own.”
Another sound like the shattering of a cosmic mirror resounded across the mountain as a second hole in space erupted with a volcanic pillar of plasma that was so hot that even without touching the stone directly the portion of the mountain nearest to the flames were already running like lava. Grogar tapped his chin in an expression of mock pondering.
“Oh, but that is a problem for you, isn’t it? You can’t control your Bankai very well at all, can you? And even if you could, your Zanpaktou is rather unruly at the best of times. Right now they seem rather furious. I wonder what will happen when the Caja Negacion fully shatters? All of that heat energy your Bankai produces will be unleashed all at once, won’t it?”
Celestia looked back at him, her eyes partially hidden by the fall of her hair, but what could be seen from the shadows there were sharpened with indescribably rage. “If that power is released here, now, there won’t be a cinder of you left, Grogar.”
“Yes, that is true. However I imagine the same can be said for that camp full of innocent humans you’re so eager to protect. And all of the Soul Reapers fighting nearby. And possibly the city about, what, a mere dozen miles away? I doubt much of anything will survive within a twenty mile radius, actually, if my senses aren’t deceiving me. So tell me, Celestia, are you willing to sacrifice all of those lives, just to ensure I am destroyed?”
He was somewhat surprised at the speed of her response, having expected some level of hesitance on her part, but instead her tone was strong and heated. “I won’t sacrifice innocent lives to see you destroyed. That’s not even a question. Cease your gloating and get on with whatever your plan is. If you intended to just Garganta away and leave this trap of yours to explode, you’d already have done it.”
“True,” he admitted, “As it happens you are in luck that it’d be detrimental to me to just leave and allow your Bankai to incinerate everything around this mountain, for reasons I’m sure you’ll understand I don’t divulge. So what I propose is that I shall open a Garganta, but not for me. I will open one around the Caja Negacion and send it into the Precipice Realm. You, of course, will join it. You can survive your own Bankai’s flames, I presume?”
Celestia’s gaze could have matched the flames of her Zanpaktou. What Grogar was suggesting was very likely the only way in which Shinryu Taiyo’s Bankai could be released from the Caja Negacion safely. There was nothing to destroy in the Precipice Realm, and Celestia would be immune to the all consuming heat that would be released from her Zanpaktou. For the next few, tense seconds she considered her options. There were precious few. There was a small chance that she could contain the blast in a barrier Kido, but knowing the strength of her Bankai, Celestia didn’t make much of that option. The risk of failure was far too high.
She could try a game of proverbial chicken with Grogar. She knew the ancient Espada wasn’t seeking death amid her Bankai’s flames, so while he could technically open a Garganta to move to safety, if he did have a reason not to want the blast to go off here she could see just how serious he was and do nothing. He might send the Caja Negacion away to preserve whatever experiment he was running that he likely wanted to protect. If the explosion did go off, and he escaped, he’d only have a very wrathful Celestia to face down the road and nothing to show for his efforts save a smoking crater and a bunch of dead, none of which he had a reason to care about besides a few key individuals he wanted to continue his experiments with. But again, Celestia wasn’t willing to take that gamble with so many lives on the line.
It was impossible for her to open a Senkaimon Gate without her Zanpaktou, so she had no means of transporting the Caja Negacion away herself. Attacking Grogar would serve no purpose either, since it wouldn’t stop the explosion from occurring.
She also couldn’t force Shinryu Taiyo to deactivate Bankai until they were released from the Caja Negacion that was separating them. The holes being created now weren’t large enough for her to actually reach through to touch the dragon’s themselves to calm them down. By the time they got out, and she’d be able to talk them down, it’d be too late... the mountain, Everfree Forest, the camp, even the distant city would...
Not for the first time Celestia felt the heavy weight on her soul that was the dire reality of possessing such destructive power, but not always being able to control it or prevent it from being a threat to those she didn’t intend. At the same time, she didn’t lose heart or let that feeling drag her into a sense of despair. Grogar might have concocted an admittedly clever plan for taking her off the board, but there were still those who could oppose him. Celestia could sense their reiatsu, like beacons across the landscape. She might not have known the details of all their individual battles, but the fact remained that her sister Luna, Captain Sweet Cider, Captain Starswirl, and all of those extraordinary girls from Canterlot High were still out there and fighting.
Whatever Grogar intended to do, he wouldn’t be able to do it unopposed, and Celestia suspected the aged and arrogant Arrancar was underestimating what some of those who’d remain after Celestia was gone were capable of.
And Celestia would be returning, as fast as she could. Once she calmed her Zanpaktou down, she’d have to open a Senkaimon Gate to Soul Society first, then use the gate there to return to the human world. It’d take time, but hopefully not so much she couldn’t still make it back in time to help... and bring reinforcements.
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Applejack pushed her Fullbring’s energy jets as hard as she could, soaring only a few dozen feet above the treetops. Now that she was close to the battle she had to focus her reiatsu like a shell around herself to keep from passing out from the combined weight of the spiritual pressures she felt from both her mother and the monstrously powerful Hollow she was fighting. Despite her mother’s reiatsu more than matching her opponent, Applejack still had a cold, leaden weight in her gut. Something felt wrong about her mother’s spirit energy. It had happened only a minute ago, a sudden and erratic shift in Sweet Cider’s reiatsu that left the impression on Applejack’s senses like a kettle boiling over. It was as if her mother’s anger was a bitter heat blistering the very air.
She heard a bellowing roar nearby, and realized the disturbing cry was in her mother’s voice!
Applejack saw a large crater up ahead, and from it she also saw a burst of rock and dirt fly skyward from a tremendous impact, followed rapidly by several more as two forms moved back and forth across the tortured ground, one chasing the other. Despite an instinctual fear of the threatening power on display, Applejack swallowed that fear and banked down to make a rough landing near the crater’s edge. She wanted to help her mother, but she needed to assess the situation first, rather than charge in blindly.
Both her mother and her enemy were moving so fast that despite Applejack’s now extensive experience dealing with high-speed foes and countless hours of training with Rainbow Dash and her friend’s ludicrous speed, it was still hard for Applejack to get a clear look at the battle. Still, her eyes adjusted, her senses sharpened, and after a few moments she saw her mother clearly. Her worry only intensified by what she saw as her brow drew down and her breath quickened. What had happened to Sweet Cider?
Her mother’s Zanpaktou was in it’s Shikai state, but the rocky coating over it’s edge was nothing like what Applejack remembered from when she faced the same weapon back in Soul Society. Sweet Cider’s body also had layers of rock covering parts of her body like partial armor, and where there wasn’t rock, Applejack saw her mother’s bright red skin had turned to a darker maroon shade. The most prominent change, however, was the blazing gold horn that curved up from her mother’s brow.
What was this? A special technique of Sweet Cider’s Zanpaktou? But Applejack recalled her mother telling her during their fight that Kizuna didn’t really have any unusual techniques, it just absorbed and fired out her mother’s reiatsu in a destructive wave. Could this be... Bankai? Applejack didn’t think so. While her mother’s reiatsu felt stronger, and wildly erratic, this wasn’t like the massive increase that came with Bankai. She’d been around Sunset Shimmer enough times by now when Sunset had been training with Discord to know what a Bankai release felt like, and this wasn’t it. This was something different, and it didn’t look good. The expression on her mother’s face was more like a bestial animal in the midst of a frenzy rather than the cognizant look of a woman in control of herself.
At least she seemed to have her opponent on the ropes. Sweet Cider was relentlessly pursuing the Arrancar, who was like a pale shadow that was shifting constantly from place to place to keep ahead of Sweet Cider’s earth shaking sword blows. As far as Applejack could tell, this Arrancar was so busy evading that he couldn’t counter attack, and his constant dodging was making it hard to get a clear look at him. All Applejack could see from the edge of the crater was a long, wild head of red hair attached to a body of pale skin clad in ragged white clothes.
If I’m gonna do anythin’ ta help, I gotta get closer. What should I be doin’? Ma looks like she’s winnin’... but I don’t like the look o’ them changes. What’s happened ta ya, ma? Even at yer rowdiest back n’ Soul Society, ya still had yer head on straight. But this just looks like a’ mindless rage.
What could have caused her mother to lose it like this? As things were, Applejack wasn’t sure she could get closer without serious risk. Her mother might be able to still recognize her in that berserk state, but that was a large risk. Applejack had only come because she’d been worried about whether or not her mother could win. Whatever this change was, it looked as if it’d given Sweet Cider an edge. If Applejack tried jumping in now, she might not end up doing much to help.
Abruptly Applejack felt her mother’s reiatsu surge and heard Sweet Cider unleash a piercing howl as Kizuna produced a set of eerily familiar jets of energy from one of its edges. These jets boosted the speed and power of a brutal sideways swing that even when the Espada dodged backwards from it, a concentrated burst of raw air pressure still struck him and set him flying. He ended up smashing into the ground fairly close to Applejack’s position, although her eyes were initially focused on her mother’s sword, her mouth hanging open.
That spirit pressure, that weren’t just Kizuna’s... that felt like a’ Fullbring! Did ma’s Fullbring somehow activate?
She was distracted by a light, sighing grunt from the Espada as he started to stand, and she turned her attention to him. His back was turned to her slightly, so she couldn’t see his face fully, but there was something weirdly familiar about him. Applejack’s felt her heartbeat quicken, as if something inside her was prodding at long shelved memories. Without realizing it she was even moving, she hopped down into the crater to try and get a better look at the pale skinned Arrancar, and her motion caught his attention. He turned his head towards her, his face now fully visible.
Applejack’s breath froze in her throat. It had been so long that her mental picture of him was a fuzzy thing, washed out by time and the fact that she’d been so young when he’d still been alive. There were differences from those distant memories as well, his hair more unruly and hanging all the way down his back instead of cut just below the shoulders. His skin was marble white, instead of a healthy wheat yellow. His eyes, however, were the same, and it was those she remembered the most, since they’d always held such warmth back then. Every time he’d picked her up to carry her, or laughed as he played with her, or patched her up when she’d hurt herself, her father had always had the kindest, warmest eyes of anyone Applejack had ever known.
And while those eyes didn’t look at her with that same warmth now, but the confusion of a stranger, there was no question in Applejack’s mind; she was looking at Hard Nail, her father.
“...Pa?”
The word hung between them, fragile as a moth’s wing. Applejack didn’t now what she expected. Her mind was honestly blank, yet on an instinctual, gut level she yearned for some spark, any sign of recognition in her father’s eyes. And for just a moment she did see something. Not clear recognition, but rather the hazy, startled waver to his eyes that was the look of someone seeing something half remembered from a dream.
Then the moment was shattered by Sweet Cider’s roar as she hurtled towards Hard Nail with her devastating blade emitting rockets of energy that powered it in a downward chop that the Arrancar had no time to dodge, instead raising his long katana and bracing it with both hands to absorb the attack. The impact alone was like a bomb going off, throwing Applejack backwards. She controlled her fall and landed skidding across the ground, and watched as her mother’s sword emitted even more intense jets of energy from it’s rocky edge and pushed her father to one knee as he stoically held his ground against her.
“Ma!” she shouted, trying to get her head wrapped around the situation.
She’d known her father had been turned into a Hollow, but had never imagined he’d be one of the Arrancar, let alone one of their Espada. Yes, she and her mother had promised to purify his soul together, but that had been a promise made when Applejack had thought her father was one of the mindless Hollows that attacked human souls indiscriminately.
For all she knew that might still be partially true. It wasn’t as if Arrancar were friendly towards human souls, and by all accounts the ones in charge of things had no good intentions towards the world of the living. But Adagio, strange as it seemed, had demonstrated that not all Arrancar or Hollows were beyond reason. Her father might be more alike to the former siren than to monstrous souls like Grogar.
Unfortunately her mother’s berserk state meant that Applejack couldn’t just take a moment to figure the situation out or ask questions. Her parents were trying to kill each other, one of them not seeming to recognize his family, while the other had for some reason entered a seemingly mindless state of rage. It left Applejack in a stunned, confused state where all she could do was stand there for a moment, frozen with indecision. Her mother hadn’t even responded to her call, growling like an animal as she tried to crush Hard Nail.
Hard Nail, pushing back against the rocket empowered blade trying to drive him to the ground, set his face in a hardened mask and with an intense green and black aura of reiatsu permeating his body he drove Sweet Cider’s blade to the side where it crashed into the ground. He then lashed out with a kick, driving his heel into Sweet Cider’s ribs with an impact loud enough to be heard like a gunshot and creating a small shockwave as the large woman was driven back. Rather than fall over, Sweet Cider kept standing, her heels digging through the ground for a few dozen yards. She didn’t even flinch from the kick, her eyes not losing their fixation upon Hard Nail as she growled again and raised her blade to charge at him again.
Only before she could, a sudden and intense heat filled the air and a rumble could be heard from the treeline behind Applejack. She turned in time to see thick, black smoke rising from the forest treetops, and then fire burst from the nearest trees as a wave of lava smashed through them. Applejack’s eyes were stunned and unblinking as she saw, of all people, Sunset Shimmer riding a wave of magma into the crater, standing upon a giant claymore-styled sword like it was a surfboard!
“Father!” Sunset Shimmer shouted, leaping off the sword and grasping it in one flipping motion that saw her landing smoothly next to Hard Nail while the wave of lava surged onward towards Sweet Cider.
Applejack almost shouted a warning to her mother, but it was unneeded. Sweet Cider looked at the magma wave crashing towards her and with one hand swept Kizuna in front of her, unleashing a blast of air pressure so strong that it splattered the wave of lava and sent it careening off to the side harmlessly.
“What in the world?” Applejack breathed, more confused than ever. What was Sunset Shimmer doing here!? And what had happened to her Zanpaktou? It was even larger now? And controlled magma?
Waitasec, this ain’t right. This reiatsu ain’t like Sunset’s at all! It feels way different, an’ feels just like... like a’ Fullbring!
And only adding to Applejack’s confusion was the fact that her father looked at Sunset Shimmer with clear recognition and said, “Fenice, what are you doing here!? I left you back at the tower so you could protect your siblings!”
Sunset Shimmer (Fenice?) looked at Hard Nail while holding her claymore in a ready, two handed grip while still facing Sweet Cider. Lava coursed over the blade as if the claymore was bleeding the molten rock from its steel surface. “I know, father, and I’m sorry to be such a disobedient daughter, but the family will be fine without me for a little while. We won’t be fine if we lose you! I couldn’t just stay behind. Not when you and Roka were both facing danger out here.”
Applejack’s father’s face broke it’s stoic mask into a grimace of mixed pain and frustrated anger, “You should have done as I said, but we’ll worry about discipline when we get home. Fenice, as your father I’m telling you to stay back. This Soul Reaper is far too powerful for you to help me with, and I may have to...”
He held up a hand, and it was only then that Applejack noticed that her father had large, polished silver nails driven through his palms. What were those, she wondered? Further pondering would have to wait, as her mother wasn’t giving any further time for talk. She saw Sweet Cider leap into the sky and pull her Zanpaktou back, an aura of gold spirit energy coalescing around the blade in a familiar manner. Applejack recognized the energy unleashing technique that Kizuna was about to perform, and before either her father or the strange Sunset Shimmer could respond, Applejack activated the jets of energy from her boots and palms and flew up into the sky.
“Ma! Stop it!” she shouted, flying directly into the path between her mother and father, “Ma, ya gotta listen ta me! Somethin’ ain’t right with ya, an’ ya gotta calm down!”
For a moment, Sweet Cider hesitated, her angered snarl briefly twitching with a look of partial recognition and horror at seeing Applejack. The moment didn’t last, however, and Applejack saw fluctuations of sparking gold energy run over both Kizuna and Sweet Cider as her mother let out an howl of both rage mitigated by emotional anguish and fear, the howl transmuting into a guttural words, “Apple...jack...rrruunnn!”
“MA!” Applejack shouted, but it was too late as her mother’s words turned back into an angered roar and Sweet Cider slammed her Zanpaktou down, the air flashing golden as the incredible wave of spirit energy blasted forth from the blade’s edge. Applejack knew she had no chance of countering or withstanding the energy wave, but it was also coming far too fast for her to fully dodge, even as she tried rocketing to the side to get out of the way.
Just as the wave was about to hit her, a form flickered into view next to her and she felt a strong, yet somehow gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Wha-!?” she didn’t even have time to finish her exclamation as her father grabbed her and threw her out of the way far faster than even Applejack could have dodged. Applejack found herself flying out of the blast’s path and caught sight of Hard Nail for just a brief instant, his eyes focused on her. The moment their eyes met, she knew her father recognized her. He might not know her, but somewhere in his mind, he recognized that she was someone tied to him.
Sweet Cider’s blast hit Lament in a flashing gold detonation that rocked the crater, and Applejack had to use her rocket jets to stabilize herself and land without smashing into the ground. Not far away was Sunset Shimmer, looking up at the explosion of energies with wide eyes.
“Father! Dammit!”
A form fell out of the smoke of the explosion. Hard Nail’s body was marked with raw burns, and his upper body was now bare save for a few scraps of the white longcoat he’d worn, and the left half of his face was singed dark. He showed no obvious pain at these injuries, but his stance was shaky as he landed between Applejack and Sunset Shimmer, the latter rushing up to him.
“Father, don’t put yourself at risk like that for some stranger-”
“Fenice,” Hard Nail cut her off, “I need you to take that girl as far from here as you can.”
“What? Why!?”
“Now hold up a’ sec!” Applejack said, raising her hand toward him, “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, pa! Not while you n’ ma are fighthin’!”
Sunset shot her a baffled look, blinking several times. “Wait, what did you call him?”
Hard Nail’s voice cut both of them off like a cold lash, “There’s no time, both of you have to get away from here! I can’t release my full strength with the two of you this close! Fenice, do as I say, and take this girl away from here, now!”
“An’ I already told ya,” Applejack said, rushing over to him and grabbing his shoulder, meeting him dead on in the eyes, her own eyes sparkling fiercely, “I ain’t goin’ nowhere!”
Her heart was a terrified jackrabbit in her chest, beating so fast she thought it’d spring right out of her throat. Nothing had given her more fear than this moment, seeing her mother so out of control, her father not even fully recognizing who she was, and knowing in the very pit of her gut that if she fled from this fight that she’d never see either of her parents again. She felt that was the truth as firmly as she’d ever felt anything before in her life. If she ran away from this, or let herself be taken away from the battlefield, then both her parents would die a second time, and probably in such a way that there’d be no reunion... in this life or otherwise. At that moment, Applejack was willing to die if that’s what it took to put an end to all this.
Her father gazed back at her resolve filled eyes, and although Applejack didn’t know it, for the Arrancar named Lament, he was dragged back across the corridors of memory. Images and sounds, like droplets forming together into a greater pool, filled him at the sight of this young woman, and he could remember her as little more than an infant, stubbornly taking her first steps after countless times falling over. The same look of resolved determination had been in that infant’s eyes as he saw now in the girl staring him down. He could feel the heat of summer days he’d experienced in Hueco Mundo, playing games of chase or hide and seek with this little girl, who’s smile matched the brightness of the sun.
So much like her mother, both in looks and attitude. He didn’t want to accept these memories, still fearful that they’d push aside the memories he had of his second family, but it was getting harder to deny them as they filled more of his mind.
“...Applejack,” he said, the name rising like a dawn in his mind, “I can’t let you get hurt.”
“Father?” said Fenice, “You... know her?”
Lament felt torn in half, two daughters, both equally important to him, refusing to leave his side while he was the target of a berserk Soul Reaper who was only out of control because he’d refused to face his past. He knew something was terribly wrong with Sweet Cider, her Zanpaktou somehow taking control of her. He had no idea how to stop her, especially now that she was in this state. She was slowly overpowering his base form. While his undying body felt no pain, and could keep fighting for some time to come, he wasn’t going to be able to defeat her as he was. He needed to release his Resurreccion. By now the blasts she’d hit him with had weakened Twilight Velvet's seal so much that he felt certain he could break free of them now, but he couldn't’ do that while Applejack and Fenice were nearby. He’d lose his own sense of self once he released the power of his Zanpaktou.
Which did carry the drawback that if he did that, he’d probably end up killing Sweet Cider. Or she him. Neither result was a good one, but what choice did he have? And if Fenice wouldn’t take Applejack away, and Applejack wouldn’t let herself be taken away, then he had only one option left to him.
With eyes burdened by what he needed to do, he looked between Fenice and Applejack.
“I know her, Fenice, as my daughter, as she knows me as her father, from another life. If neither of you will listen to me, then so be it, but follow this last request; look after each other.”
He then pushed all he had into a Sonido that left him vanishing from either human’s view. He moved like a dark bolt of shadow right past Sweet Cider, swinging his Zanpaktou in a wide arc. He managed to catch her shoulder, his blade still sharp enough to leave a cut even through the fresh, rocky armor there. The wound was enough to ensure Sweet Cider’s attention was solely on him as he briefly paused long enough to saw, “Come, wife, we’ll settle this away from the children.”
With speed he knew only Sweet Cider could match, he then flew away, each step of Sonido covering vast distances. With a feral roar, Sweet Cider gave chase, her Flash Steps keeping pace as both of them fled towards the deeper mountain chain to the north.
----------
Left behind, Applejack was stuck gaping for a moment, then her face turned into a deep frown, “H-Hey! Git back here ya two! I ain’t even close ta done!”
She was about to blast off and give chase when she felt a firm hand on her arm.
“Wait,” the girl who looked like Sunset said, “Who are you? How do you know my father?”
Applejack rounded on the girl, still confused, “What n’ the land sakes are ya blabberin’ ‘bout Sunset!? What’re ya doin’ swingin’ around a’ Fullbring anyhows? An’ why ya actin’ like ya know my pa!?”
There was a tremor that passed through Sunset, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment as her expression darkened, but then she snapped her eyes open and she said in a constrained voice, “Stop calling me Sunset. That hasn’t been my name in a long time. I’m Fenice. It’s the name my father gave me when he saved me in Hueco Mundo. We’re not related by blood, but that doesn’t matter. Me, him, and my siblings are all family, and right now my family is in danger. Now please, who are you? How do you know father?”
Applejack tried very hard to process what she was hearing, her straightforward mindset having difficulty churning through the information quickly, even as her heart’s intuition surged towards the truth. If she stopped letting her fear for her parents get in the way and thought it through, it wasn’t that hard to guess at a few things. This girl looked like Sunset Shimmer, and spoke with her voice, but her attitude and mannerisms were slightly off, and perhaps most telling was that Fullbring. It radiated a spiritual pressure that while feeling akin to Sunset’s, had its own unique flavor to it, like the difference between two different breeds of apple.
Taking a deep breath, Applejack said, “i know ‘im ‘cause he’s my pa, too. From when he was livin’.”
It was odd seeing Fenice struggle to quickly process that the same way Applejack was trying to do the same with the notion of who Fenice really was. The girl licked her lips, glancing at Applejack’s face, really looking at Applejack’s features and making the connections to the similarities both to Sweet Cider and Lament’s appearance. When the realization struck, it was like a bolt of lightning going off in Fenice’s eyes.
“...Holy crap, you are, aren’t you? And that Soul Reaper, she’s your... mother... and father’s... oh God...”
Fenice leaned on her claymore, her breathing growing heavy, “No wonder he’s like that. If she’s his... and you’re his... w-what was your name again?”
“Applejack. Fenice, what’s goin’ on? Why’d pa want ta go rushin’ off like that an’ draw ma away with him? He was goin’ on ‘bout releasin’ his ‘full strength’ or somehin’.”
Gulping, Fenice drew herself up and clenched her hands around her sword for support, “He’s drawing her away so he can release his Resurreccion. You know what that is?”
Applejack nodded, “Ain’t ever seen one, but heard ‘bout ‘em. Some kind o’ fancy transformation, like what Soul Reapers do with their Zanpaktou.”
“Close enough. Father’s is problematic, though. It’s powerful, but he loses his sense of self when he uses it. He can’t distinguish between enemies and anyone else,” Fenice said, and her tone dropped a cold octave, “Including family.”
If Applejack had been feeling fear before, then this new sensation of chilling cold that gripped her was a different level altogether. Her breathing quickened as she turned to look with wide eyes towards where her father and mother had vanished at such god-like speeds, “If yer tellin’ it true, if he does that, while ma also ain’t in her right head, then they’re gonna end up killin’ each other! I gotta stop ‘em!”
Fenice gripped Applejack’s hand, halting her, “How? How do you plan to do that?”
“Let go o’ me! If ya think o’ my pa as yer own, don’t ya want to stop him too?”
“Of course I do!” Fenice shouted, a shimmer of wetness in her eyes that matched her desperate tone, “I don’t even know if he can beat that Soul Reaper, but that’s part of my point. We go in without a plan, and we’ll fail, because in case it didn’t penetrate your thick skull, our parents are much stronger than we are. We have to have a plan if we’re going to stop them from destroying each other.”
It took all the willpower Applejack could muster to calm herself down even by the smallest fraction, taking a few haggard, deep breaths before she said, “Right... yer right. But I ain’t very good at plannin’. All I got are my fists n’ feet ta try n’ pummel some sense inta them. Worked on ma before, even with her bein’ so much stronger n’ me. Might do fer pa, too.”
“That won’t work,” Fenice said, “You’ve never seen father when he goes all out. It's... terrifying. He’d kill you in an instant if you tried to attack him.”
“What other choice do I got!?” Applejack blurted, racking her brain for any other ideas, but her mind was blank. She looked at her armored clad hands with a sense of bitterness. What good was her Fullbring if she couldn’t use it to save her own family? She’d felt such pride when she’d managed to snap her mother back to reality, back in Soul Society. She’d truly gone all out to achieve that, shattering these very gauntlets in the process. Yet she knew she’d gotten lucky that time. That chain on Kizuna that had sealed her mother’s memory had been a weak point she’d been able to exploit, and she also had to admit that there was a strong chance her mother had been holding back during that fight, not wanting to kill Applejack.
But things were different now. Her mother wasn’t in her right mind, filled with a berserk rage from some issue with her Zanpaktou and Fullbring being fused together. That meant there’d be no holding back, and there was no memory seal to target. Worse, if her father released his Resurreccion it sounded like he’d be even worse to deal with. Applejack was so out of her league in terms of power she might as well be trying to stop two raging bulls with a feather duster.
Despite that, she was going to try anyway. They were her parents. She couldn’t let them destroy each other like this. Her family had endured enough tragedy. She wasn’t going to have it any more.
Fenice was looking at her, and slowly lowered her eyes and gripped Applejack’s hand tighter, “None. There’s no choice at all. We have to protect our family... even if we’ve come to that family in a weird way. There’s a chance, Applejack, if we work together. This armor you’re wearing, it’s Fullbring, right?”
“Darn straight. Yer sword is, too, ain’t it?”
“That’s right. I can tell your Fullbring isn’t complete. Mine is, and I’ve had mine for a lot longer than yours, I’ll bet,” Fenice said, almost sounding a bit like the somewhat prideful and cocky Sunset Shimmer that Applejack knew, “I thought I was the last Fullbringer left, but I’ll worry about where you got your powers from later. Right now all that matters is that with my knowledge of Fullbring, I think I can do something to help your mother.”
“Huh? Like what?”
“Whatever’s wrong with her, I can tell it’s got something to do with Fullbring. I can sense it in her Zanpaktou, and it’s unstable. The whole core of Fullbring, though, is that we can control the souls inside things. Like, if you wanted you could ‘Fullbring’ a glass of water into your mouth at a touch, or harden air to step on, or whatever else. That means if you know what you’re doing you can also use other people’s Fullbrings.”
Applejack blinked at her, “Wait, what?”
Fenice managed a weak smirk, “It isn’t easy. Usually requires a strong familiarity between the two Fullbringers, but with the right know-how it’s possible to do it even without that familiarity. Point is, if you can distract your mom long enough, I think I could tear her Fullbring free of her Zanpaktou. That ought to bring her back to her senses.”
Briefly stunned, Applejack took a moment to say, “That might work! But what about pa!?”
“If we catch up to them before he uses Resurreccion, I can convince him to stand down, I think. If not... we run, with your mother. We run as fast as we can. If father doesn’t have a target, he’ll eventually calm down and his transformation will wear off on it’s own,” Fenice said, even her own expression showing she understood this wasn’t much of a plan. But it was all they had.
Applejack didn’t even need to consider it a second longer. She reached out and gripped Fenice’s hand with both of her own, “Sounds like a’ plan ta me. Let’s go save our parents!”
----------
It was in a secluded mountain valley that Lament chose as the place to finish things between himself and Sweet Cider. The valley was richly green, carpeted in a field of tall grass that was brushed with vibrant patches of yellow from wild flowers growing along its length. A small stream winded it’s way through the valley, flowing down from the white capped mountains. Any other time, any other day, it was the perfect kind of place to take one’s family to go camping.
A part of him wanted to resist remembering that. To throw that memory back into the depths of his subconscious. But seeing Applejack, his little girl, had been enough to rip those shakily held floodgates open. For a second that lasted unto eternity Lament looked up at the sky and let his past life wash over him. He was still frightened he might lose himself to it, but he couldn’t afford to run from it anymore either. Not if he was going to do what he felt had to be done, now. If he was going to be responsible for killing Sweet Cider, or end up falling to her blade, he owed it to both of them to remember.
Because he saw no other end to this. He had to release his Zanpaktou, and accept the result that came with it. He didn’t know which of them would walk away from that. If she was still in her right mind, maybe he could have found another way, but with her out of control there was no telling what damage she’d do. The same could be said of himself. He knew he’d have no control either, but he did know that as long as he was far from any obvious targets, his transformed state would become passive once a battle was done.
He just hoped that Fenice and Applejack would have the sense to stay far away, once his Resurrection was released. A part of him that knew both of his girls doubted that, but he still didn’t see any other options. Another part of him almost wanted to blame Adagio for this mess, but that would be unfair. There was no way she could have known this was how things would play out, let alone predict his connection with one of the Soul Reaper Captains.
How surreal. In the filling void of his memories, he could see Sweet Cider so clearly. That simple yet quiet and boundless warmth and strength that he’d fallen in love with. How had they both come to this? How had their lives gotten twisted so far off course?
It made perfect sense to him, now, why he’d awoken in Hueco Mundo filled with an endless, dark pit of regret in his soul. His first memory of infinite white sands, crawling across that empty dead expanse consumed by choking sadness and regret so deep that it manifested as a physical miasma of dark mist around his body. He remembered those early days now in a different light, consuming every Hollow that came close to him, never filling that yawning chasm in his soul where his loving wife, precious children, and simple but fulfilling life had been.
Even as his memory faded, the regret of that loss remained as deep as ever, and led him through ascension into an Arrancar, almost as if something inside him had guided him towards that state.
The regret had been so deep that when he felt certain nothing could alleviate it, he’d created a new family without even understanding that he was doing it to create an echo of the life he’d lost. Memories from both lives intermingled inside him. Holding newborn Applejack for the first time, holding Roka’s hand after saving her from the Warrens, playing in the orchard with Big Mac, carrying an exhausted Fenice home to the tower after finding her in the desert, laughing around the table with Sweet Cider and Granny Smith, hiding a small smile around the table with his adopted Arrancar children, sitting at the farmstead and petting Winona, sitting atop his tower petting Winston...
Protecting his family from an invisible Hollow in the night, protecting his family from the Quincy...
Living or dead, he really was the same man, wasn’t he? Family, above everything.
He felt the impact of Sweet Cider’s arrival like a thunderbolt. Felt her searing reiatsu wash over him. Heard her enraged roar.
Lament, and Hard Nail, smiled sadly as he turned to face her. He looked into her raging eyes, and held that gaze with his own that now could look at her knowing full well who she was and what she meant to him.
His next words were spoken in his old, faint accent, “I’m sorry, Sweet Cider. Looks like you n’ me, we got some rotten luck. Finding each other again, only to have to do this. ‘Cause you see, I don’t want either of us hurting our girls. And to stop what you’ve become, I got to become something just as dangerous.”
He didn’t know if she could even hear him in her current state, and while she didn’t immediately charge him, he did see that she was tensing for it, like a lioness coiling her muscles before springing upon her prey. That was fine. He’d said what he needed to, and now there was just one last thing to say. The first time he’d speak these words, and truly wish he didn’t have to.
”Fade to black; Lamentar.”
The darkness poured from his heart and soul, the black fountain of spirit energy soaring upwards and taking his conscious with it... along with a few stray tears that soon evaporated into nothingness.
----------
If nothing else, finding where her parents went wasn’t hard, especially when an oppressive reiatsu crushed it’s way into Applejack’s senses as a geyser of liquid shadow reached into the sky and began to blanket it. The origin point was a large mountain valley that, even at a distance, Applejack found sparked a familiar memory. She’d been just a girl of maybe six years of age, but she still remembered those peaks, and the brush of yellow flowers over fields of tall, green grass. An old camping spot, where her family had gone once or twice in the height of summer.
She felt Fenice tense her grip around Applejack’s shoulders. The other girl was riding somewhat awkwardly holding onto Applejack’s back, her sword strapped to her own back. The weight was negligible for Applejack, but made flying a bit rough until she learned to compensate for the uneven balance. As soon as she and Fenice had agreed to their plan of action, they’d immediately taken off in pursuit of Hard Nail and Sweet Cider. Faster though the elder Apples might have been, but Applejack was pushing her Fullbring’s flight to its limit, putting the finest man-made jets to shame. If Fenice wasn’t using Fullbring herself to break some of the wind shear and remain more or less stuck to Applejack’s clothing, it’d have been easy for her to get torn off by the speed Applejack was moving at. Nothing Rainbow Dash couldn’t easily blast past, but a respectable effort from the farm girl desperate to catch up to her parents to end this battle before it was too late.
But still not fast enough, judging by that incredibly dense and dark reiatsu she sensed, so potent that it felt like it was choking her.
“Fenice, that what I think it was?” she asked.
Fenice’s dire toned voice shouted over the whipping wind into Applejack’s ear, “It is. Father’s released his Resurreccion. This just got a thousand times harder... but we’re not stopping, right?”
“Ain’t nothin’ stoppin’ us,” Applejack confirmed, eyes narrowing as they neared the valley. They’d be there in less than a minute. Already she could see the pillar of darkness from her father’s transformation slowly fading, although his reiatsu remained as frightfully mind numbing as ever. Yet it didn’t actually overshadow her mother’s at this point, the out of control Sweet Cider’s spiritual pressure seeming like an erupting volcano next to a vast ocean of darkness. Both were equally intimidating, but Applejack pressed on, and soon was angling down towards the valley.
She scanned it, seeking her parents, and in a moment, spotted them both, her mouth going dry.
Her father looked... horrifying. His Resurreccion sent freezing chills right into the marrow of her bones. He hadn’t grown in size or changed even all that drastically, but the wolf-skull mask covering his face, with voids of black where his eyes should be, and the viscous looking horns, combined with onyx clawed hands and feet wielding and equally dark blade, all served to give off an aura of cold remorselessness. Against that cold void her father gave off was Sweet Cider’s vibrantly blazing rage, the oni-like woman going on the attack first as she cratered the ground beneath her in a burst of forceful speed.
The giant blade of Kizuna smashed down, propelled to greater heights of force by rockets of gold energy. The transformed Hard Nail seemed to move like a projector image instantly flicking between one frame and the next, his black blade intercepting Kizuna with one hand.
The clash created a flash of blinding light as both blades and the spirit energies of the two titanic combatants collided. Applejack couldn’t shield her eyes, but did look away as she swiftly banked down harder and came in for a rough landing amidst the pressure wave of air that exploded over the area from her parent’s clash. Fenice hopped off her back and unshouldered her Fullbring, shouting to Applejack.
“Whatever you do, don’t engage father directly! I’m going to try to distract him, while you get your mother’s attention. As soon as we get an opening, I’ll try to latch onto her sword, but I need you to make sure she doesn’t see me coming, or I’m toast!”
“On it!” Applejack said, “Just make sure ya don’t git yerself killed neither, Fenice!”
By now her parents had split off from their clash, only to immediately rush back in at each other. Sweet Cider dragged her blade through the ground, creating a massive fissure and blasting dirt around as if she were dragging the sword through water, swinging it up in a devastating uppercut. Hard Nail moved with the kind of speed and grace that made him seem less like a being of solid matter and more like a living shadow, his sword striking the flat side of Sweet Cider’s Zanpaktou as he spun into her blow and used it’s own insane momentum to push it up and over him as he slipped past her reach and instantly slashed his sword across her stomach. Applejack bit back a cry at the sight of her mother’s blood spilling across the green grass of their family’s old campground, but Sweet Cider’s equally insane reiatsu hardened her flesh to the point that even Hard Nail’s strength failed to cause a deep wound.
Not that such a fact stopped him from following his sword strike up with a grab on Sweet Cider’s right arm, which he used to leverage her around into a throw that smashed her into the ground like a wrecking ball, then followed that up with a sweep of his palm that fired an inky black Cero at point blank range.
Golden energy exploded upwards in a sparkling surge from Sweet Cider and her blade as she immediately flipped to her feet and swung Kizuna like a baseball bat, colliding the Zanpaktou against the black Cero. In the resulting clash of energies, winds howled and buffeted both Applejack and Fenice. Shockingly, the Cero was diverted upwards like a jet from a hose being deflected by a hand. The beam still soared into one of the surrounding mountain bases, and drilled into the vast edifice of eons-old stone. The entire valley shook as, a moment later, the void-like Cero exploded out the other side of the mountain and soared up into the sky, leaving a neatly circular hole straight through the entire mountain's length.
It occurred to Applejack just then how insane it really was for her and Fenice to be trying to interfere in this fight, but their course was set and if this was allowed to continue on for very long, one or both of their parents would certainly die their second deaths. Both girls made their move, both trusting the other to do what needed doing even though they’d only just met. For Applejack there was literally no other choice but to trust Fenice, but she felt she could for more than just that. She might not be the Sunset Shimmer that Applejack knew, but some of the fire, pride, and integrity of the Sunset that was Applejack’s friend was there in Fenice. More than that, even as a Hollow, her father had made a family for himself,and if Fenice was a part of that family, then she was Applejack’s family. That alone was enough for Applejack to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Fenice knew that to draw her father’s attention for even a few seconds without being killed would require her to put her Fullbring to the test while being very careful in how she moved, all while not having any actual time to be too cautious. Right now her and Applejack’s only advantage was that their reiatsu was so comparatively low to Hard Nail and Sweet Cider that their presence hadn’t even registered to the two combatants yet.
This allowed Fenice to get into position in a flicker of speed, green motes of Bringer Light appearing around her feet as she zipped from one point to another to get behind her father. Molten light spread across her sword as she swung it around, jets of lava flowing out from the blade to pool in several spots. Focusing, Fenice took control of the lava and directed its shape. Bubbling upwards, the lava took the shape of several rough hands, each about the size of a person. At the same time she swept her sword up and down and from it more magma spurted out to form a growing, semi-circular wall. Immediately Fenice started to circle around to the right side of that wall, while directing the half dozen hands of lava to rush towards her father.
She knew full well that her magma was not powerful enough to pose any real threat to him, but all she wanted was to make him look at something other than Sweet Cider. The wall she’d created was just to mask her own presence as she circled around, hoping to get around towards Sweet Cider while her father paid attention to the lava.
It partially worked. Her father did turn a moment of attention to the hands of lava coming at him. With a blood freezing growl, he made one harsh swipe of his sword and the force of it splattered the lava hands, and a large section of the wall behind them, nearly knocking Fenice off her feet. She rolled with the fall and was back on her feet in an instant, but froze as she realized her father had appeared behind her, having completely bypassed the wall she’d been using for cover with Sonido.
Much as she loved her father, it was impossible not to feel gripped by terror looking into the pits of his eyes as he stared at her.
He started to raise his sword, but Fenice heard a shout from behind her.
“Roarin’ Apple Cannon!”
A thick beam of gold energy cut across Fenice’s vision, impacting dead on with Hard Nail’s chest. The beam of energy splashed upon him like water hosing down a boulder, and with about as much effect. Applejack stood with both hands clasped together, the nozzles on the back of her hands smoking from her combined blast. She could see it did next to nothing to her father, but it did make him look from Fenice, to her.
“You idiot, I told you not to-” Fenice began, but Hard Nail was already moving, having identified a new threat. Applejack couldn’t react at all to the shadow of dark motion that came towards her, only seeing a black blade coming for her throat.
A meteor streak of raging red slammed into Hard Nail from the side. Sweet Cider had gripped him by the side of his wolf mask with a hand and bellowed out an air shaking roar as she slammed him into the ground and proceeded to dig a trench with his head as she charged across the valley, leaving a stunned Applejack blinking.
Applejack shook herself and turned in time to see her father brace himself on her mother’s arm, and kick up with one of his clawed feet, striking her under the chin and launching her into the sky. He vanished instantaneously and appeared above her, thrusting his blade down to try and impale Sweet Cider. She blocked the blow with the flat of Kizuna, preventing herself from being run through, but the impact still drilled her right back down to the ground with a massive impact.
Fenice, having recovered her wits, saw an opportunity while Hard Nail was still in the air and gripped her Fullbring with both hands, holding it up in front of her as she pointed the sword right at her father. Coils of liquid magma blossomed from the sword in a swirling mass, and formed together into a sphere that she then launched at her father. The moment she did so she turned to Applejack and shouted, “Your mother! Now!”
Sweet Cider was standing up from the fresh crater her body had made in the ground, and her eyes were focused exclusively on Hard Nail. Applejack saw the opening, especially as Hard Nail turned towards the sphere of lava flying at him and responded with another casual sword swipe that broke the sphere apart like a bubble. But it did cost him a second where he wasn’t looking at anything else.
Fenice and Applejack both moved as one. Applejack appeared in front of her mother, her jaw clenched tight as she braced her leg back and the armor across that limb crackled with golden power. “Eyes on me, ma! Time ta clear yer head!”
Rocket jets of energy flared along both the front and back of her legs, and Applejack launched into a blazing series of machine gun swift kicks to her mother’s chest and face. It felt like kicking a condensed block of solid metal, harder than any steel. Sweet Cider absorbed the blows with almost insulting ease, and Applejack looked into her mother’s crazed eyes with an imploring look of her own. She felt her mother’s fist strike her gut well before she even registered her mother’s movement. Spittle and blood flew from Applejack’s mouth as she felt like she been speared through, almost afraid that maybe her mother had impaled her with a fist. It certainly felt like it, but as she collapsed to the ground, she realized her stomach was still intact, the blow had simply knocked her up into the air. Well, that and probably broken every one of Applejack’s ribs and possibly caused other internal damage.
Applejack hit the ground in a heap, with her mother standing over her. Her mother raised her sword to strike, even as Applejack spat up more blood and said, “Ma... that’s right, eyes on me...”
Which meant that Fenice was able to spring in from behind and grip Kizuna with both hands, having stabbed her own Fullbring into the ground so she could grab the Zanpaktou solidly. Sweet Cider glanced over her shoulder, about to turn around and smash this other irritant that had appeared, but with contact already made, Fenice didn’t even need an extra second. Green Bringer Light flowed around her, her hands, and into Kizuna as Fenice poured her power into the Zanpaktou, and took hold of the other, errant Fullbring that was fused into the Soul Reaper’s blade.
In that instant, everything slowed to a still moment of time, and within Kizuna...
----------
The inner world of Kizuna was once an idyllic appearing village set upon a pristine mountain peak. Although always empty, the village had the sensations of a lived in place, with fresh laundry hanging from clotheslines strung between windows, and freshly baked meals sitting upon tables as if just waiting for families to appear.
Yet now the village looked like a bombed out ruin, flames still licking at the last skeletal remains of homes and thick smoke darkening the sky. Rubble was strewn everywhere, alongside craters from recent impacts. The source of these craters became readily apparent as Sweet Cider was thrown through the remains of one of the crushed homes to hit the ground hard and create yet another small crater amid what was left of the village roads.
She was bloody and battered, one eye swollen shut, but despite it being obvious that she’d been taking a beating, she still forced herself to stand and locked determined eyes upon her target. She didn’t know how long she’d been at this. Inside her Zanpaktou’s inner world, it felt like days, but on the outside she knew it might only have been minutes. Even one was a minute she didn’t think she had time to spare. When she’d felt her control of Kizuna slipping due to her Fullbring’s intermingling with her Zanpaktou spirit she knew she had to take action, so she’d dived into Kizuna’s inner world to confront her sword’s spirit directly.
She’d been getting her butt kicked ever since.
“Knew you were a’ stubborn blade, but ya sure ain’t pullin’ yer punches on me, are ya?” she muttered as she wiped some of the blood from her face and readied herself, fists up.
Shaking the ground with every stomp of her feet, Kizuna stalked through the ruins towards Sweet Cider, her towering, muscular body like an exaggerated mirror to Sweet Cider’s own amazonian frame. The oni-like spirit was covered in spiked, stone chains that seemed to sprout from the ground and wrap around Kizuna’s arms, legs, and buxom torso, but they didn’t appear to restrain the Zanpaktou spirit so much as agitate her to further heights of fury. Kizuna held a spiked club in an iron grip, growling incoherently at Sweet Cider as she swung it back in preparation to attack.
As the club smashed down, Sweet Cider vanished with Flash Step, getting behind Kizuna as the oni added another crater to the landscape. Sweet Cider got her arms wrapped around Kizuna’s waist and attempted to rear back to suplex the oni, but the Zanpaktou spirit planted her feet like a professional wrestler and twisted around so she was able to ram an elbow into the side of Sweet Cider’s head, knocking her aside.
Sweet Cider kept her feet under her and spat out blood from the side of her mouth as she grimaced and came back at Kizuna, fist swinging out with a haymaker blow to the oni’s face, “Dang it ya boneheaded kitchen knife! Stop fightin’ me already! Can’t ya see yer not thinkin’ straight?”
She’d already tried attacking the stone chains earlier, but even if she was able to rip one or two off of Kizuna, more just sprung from the ground to replace the broken ones. The problem was that Sweet Cider had no precedence for this kind of situation. She knew how to use her Fullbring from when she’d been alive, but she’d never had to do anything complex with it during her Xcution days. She could feel the Fullbring’s energy entwined with Kizuna’s spirit, and could even touch that energy like she used to, but she couldn’t figure out how to pull it free of Kizuna. It was like trying to figure out how to separate oil from water once the two were poured into the same bowl. Sure, they were technically different, and not mixing well, but how did you get the oil out of the water?
Her hammering punch struck with a shockwave of force, and even drove Kizuna back several steps, but the oni’s berserk stamina was boundless and she came back at Sweet Cider with a tempest of swings from her massive club. Sweet Cider dodged several of the swings, but then stepped into one overhanded swing and caught the club with her hands. Sweet Cider’s muscles strained against that of the oni’s as both tested their might against each other.
Then, to Sweet Cider’s surprise, Kizuna let out a surprised grunt and stumbled back. For a moment Sweet Cider didn’t know what had happened, until she saw that Kizuna had dropped her club and was gripping her head between her hands, shaking her head around. Wisps of green light were appearing around the stone chains, and Sweet Cider felt a foreign spiritual energy entering the inner world.
“What n’ the world...?” Sweet Cider breathed, watching as the green motes of light, Bringer Light she now recognized it as, began to flit and coil around the stone chains.
Then the entire inner world began to shake. The ground split as fissures formed in a spreading web of cracks around Kizuna. Sweet Cider stepped back, then leaped aside as one of the fissures ran by her. Brighter, more intense green light flowed up out of the earthen cracks, and the stone chains around Kizuna began to transmute into similar light, joining the greater streams flowing up into the sky.
To Sweet Cider’s senses, it felt like something or someone had reached into her inner world and was taking hold of her Fullbring, and if she hadn’t missed her guess it was another Fullbringer doing it! But this wasn’t Applejack’s spiritual pressure, and it didn’t feel like any of her daughter’s friends, either. Then who was doing this?
Whoever it was, they’d just done her a huge favor, because the moment the chains of stone had been pulled away from Kizuna, the oni’s bulky frame sank to the ground, her hands still clutching her head. Sweet Cider watched as the green light in the sky amassed into a sphere, then she felt the energy of her Fullbring being drawn forcibly out of her Zanpaktou. Yet this wasn’t nearly as destructive as she might have feared, and if anything Sweet Cider was both amazed and deeply concerned by what was happening.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t asked Starswirl about ways to extract her Fullbring from Kizuna, but the Twelfth Division Captain had said he’d need to take things slowly on figuring out how to do that. If one of the Soul Reaper’s greatest scientific minds wanted to take time on doing something, Sweet Cider assumed it wasn’t the kind of thing that could be done easily. Granted that didn’t mean that whoever was doing this was having an easy time of it. If anything the way the ground kept shaking and the sensation of tension in the air suggested this extraction was taking a toll both on Kizuna and on the person performing this feat.
It was more that this was possible at all that concerned Sweet Cider, because if she thought about it logically there was no way her daughter or any of her friends could pull this off. Their Fullbrings were subtly different than the ones Sweet Cider and her own friends had used in Xcution, intertwined as it was with the magic from Equestria. There didn’t seem to be any magic involved with this, just... a great deal more experience with Fullbring than either Sweet Cider or her daughter’s friends had.
So who could possibly know so much about Fullbring a to be able to do this, and were they an ally, or an enemy?
“Grrruuu...”
A groan drew Sweet Cider’s attention away from her thoughts and to her Zanpaktou spirit. Kizuna was now just rubbing her head with one hand as she lumbered to her feet, eyes blinking blearily as she looked around at the ruined village, then at Sweet Cider.
“What the hell happened?” grumbled the oni, “Feel like I’m going to hurl after a week long bender...”
Sweet Cider blew out a sigh that was half relief, half consternation as she approached Kizuna and slapped a hand on the oni’s shoulder, “Nevermind that! We’re n’ a serious pickle, an’ I’m gonna need yer strength! Ya still up fer a brawl?”
Ever a simple soul, Kizuna didn’t need very long to crack a toothy grin and roll her shoulders with audible, popping noises, “Like you have to ask. Don’t know why, but I’m still feeling kind of pissed off about something, but I can’t remember what. But weird thing is, I’m also feeling real clear headed, like I just woke up after a long ass nap. So who’s head are we crushing?”
The last thing Sweet Cider clearly remembered she was still facing off with her husband, but no telling if that was still the case. “Don’t know, but let’s find out.”
She offered Kizuna a hand, and the oni gripped it with fierce strength, and Sweet Cider let her consciousness rise upward out of the Zanpaktou’s inner world and return to the physical.
----------
Applejack was trying to get her arms under her enough to lift herself back up, despite the churning pain in her chest. The fact that she could move at all was a good enough sign in her book, but a feeling of ice on her spine caused her to look up. What little distraction had been caused by Fenice’s lava sphere was now gone as her father had now appeared on the ground no more than a few steps away from her, Sweet Cider, and Fenice.
Applejack looked up at Hard Nail’s face, who’s black eyes stared back without expression.
“...Pa...” she managed to croak out, forcing herself to get her legs under her, managing to get up to one knee, “Pa... can’t ya... tell who I am?”
There was no reason to think he would. Fenice had said he was completely without the ability to tell friend from foe in this state, and he’d been having a hard enough time acknowledging his memories of his human family even before transforming. But there wasn’t much else Applejack could do except make a verbal plea. Even if she wasn’t injured, her full strength wasn’t anywhere near close enough to stop her father.
He took a step forward, almost as if he wasn’t in any kind of rush, and Applejack said, “An’ what ‘bout Fenice!? Ain’t she family ta ya now, too? Whatever power yer drownin’ in, can ya really accept it if ya hurt yer own kin?”
He stopped, and for a second Applejack thought she might have actually reached him, but then her father raised his left hand and pointed a claw towards her. A singular speck of darkness started to form into a larger sphere of destructive spirit energy, overshadowing Applejack’s features.
Then green light flowed over Sweet Cider’s Zanpaktou, and the rock that had spread across both it and Sweet Cider’s body flashed green and was pulled away like taffy being stretched out. The light pooled in Fenice’s hands and she let out a shout as she stumbled back away from Sweet Cider, and the light solidified into the shape of a large, double-edged sword formed from craggy rock. It was a little wider, but a bit shorter in length when compared to Fenice’s blade, but both looked like they were of similar heft. Applejack could feel the energy of the sword, and knew this had to be her mother’s Fullbring, now separated from Kizuna.
Speaking of Kizuna, the moment Sweet Cider’s Fullbring was pulled out of it, the massive blade of bronze began to form cracks along its surface. Gold light poured from those cracks, while her mother’s body lost the horn that had appeared on her head. While this was happening, Hard Nail adjusted the aim of his pointed finger upward, seeming to recognize Sweet Cider as the real threat. Without hesitation her mother took up her cracking sword and stepped right in the path of the beam that Hard Nail was about to discharge, standing between him and Applejack.
Kizuna swung just as the black beam fired, and for a moment all Applejack could see was darkness intermixing with a blinding flash of gold light.
When the light faded and Applejack could see again, she saw that her father’s Cero had demolished a wide swath of the valley to either side of herself, her mother, and Fenice who was just a little ways behind them. Sweet Cider stood before her, and Hard Nail had jumped back a fair distance, possibly on reflex to assess the new threat before him.
In Sweet Cider’s hands were her Zanpaktou, but it wasn’t quite the same Kizuna as before.
It was still an unbelievable massive blade of shining bronze, but rather than its rough, barely shaped form of uneven metal the Zanpaktou now bore a smooth and tempered surface. It still possessed two edges, but it was slightly curved upward towards the tip, with the inward edge slightly thicker than the outward. The sword was positively brimming with spirit energy, raw golden light moving like rivers across its surface. Applejack could feel her mother’s reiatsu like a warm light on her skin. It was as powerful as ever, but now it was stable and steady.
“M-ma? Ya... alright?” Applejack said, and her mother glanced back at her in surprise.
“Hayseed? Ah hell, shoulda known ya’d come runnin’ even if I told ya ta stay put with yer friends. Just sit tight, n’ let me handle this.”
“Wait!” Applejack said, trying to stand, and finding she could barely keep herself up on one knee. Her mother, finally seeing the state of Applejack’s injuries, grit her teeth.
“Was it me or yer pa that did that ta ya? Dangnabbit, I’m sorry Applejack, I know I promised ya we’d take care o’ this together, but I had no notion yer pa had become so damn strong,” Sweet Cider said, keeping one eye on Hard Nail, who hadn’t immediately resumed his attacks and was instead carefully observing them, like a predator trying to size up another predator.
“That ain’t what matters,” Applejack said, “Ma, listen ta me, we gotta git goin’! Fenice says if we split, then pa won’t keep attackin’ an’ he’ll eventually calm back down.”
“Fenice? That the one over there that looks like yer pal Sunset?” Sweet Cider said, flicking a brief look towards Fenice, “You, girl, you who I got ta thank fer yanking my Fullbring free o’ Kizuna?”
“Y-yeah,” Fenice said, retrieving her own Fullbring as fast as she could and rushing up to the pair, “And your daughter’s telling the truth. If we can get away from my father, he’ll eventually go back to normal.”
Sweet Cider’s expression grew grim as Hard Nail started to move towards them with stalking steps, “Hate ta say it, but don’t think he’s gonna let us go that easy. Just hand me Hearthstone.”
“Is that your Fullbring’s name?” Fenice said, but didn’t wait for an answer before handing the rock blade to Sweet Cider, who gripped it in her left hand while wielding Kizuna in her right hand. The two humongous swords looked completely unbalanced and impossible to dual wield, yet somehow Sweet Cider hefted both with seeming ease.
“Ma, we got ta stop pa without killin’ him. He’s... got a different family now.”
“I know, hayseed, I know. Look, just leave this ta me. Fenice, yer one o’ Hard Nails adopted kids? Can ya keep Applejack safe while I knock some sense inta my husband?”
“I’ll try.”
Sweet Cider nodded at the girl’s words, then turned her full attention to Hard Nail. There was hardly a moment’s pause before the pair disappeared from sight, only to blink back into view while their blades flashed like a field of sparkling stars between them. Hard Nail had already possessed a speed advantage, which was only higher now in his Resurrection form, but now wielding two swords Sweet Cider had a wider range to both defend and attack, and if anything Kizuna was lighter in her hands than the Zanpaktou had ever been. That was because before now, the intermingling of her Fullbring with Kizuna had been preventing the Zanpaktou from forming a true Shikai, only able to manifest a rougher form. Now the bond between Soul Reaper and Zanpaktou was complete and the spirit energy could flow more freely between them.
While this also meant the extra well of spirit energy from Sweet Cider’s Fullbring was no longer part of Kizuna, the Fullbring itself remained a part of Sweet Cider, and she could wield Hearthstone alongside Kizuna without fear.
Even facing her husband’s full power, Sweet Cider didn’t back down an inch, and her swords spun in a whirling storm of blows as she tried to hammer past Hard Nail’s incredibly swift and deadly defenses. The pair criss-crossed the valley, blowing clouds of flowers in the wake of their motions as they exchanged blows at such dizzying speed that for a moment it looked like the valley was being subjected to a hurricane.
Applejack watched, Fenice kneeling by her side as both girls were buffeted by the winds of their parent’s battle. Applejack’s hands were clenched tight to the point of pain. Though her body hurt, her heart was suffering worse. Even with her mother back to normal, not much was different from a few minutes ago. She was still stuck watching her mother and father fight.
“I gotta do somethin’...” she said, and Fenice gripped her shoulder tightly.
“Don’t be stupid. We were lucky to pull off freeing your mother without getting killed. If father won’t let us flee, our only shot is hoping your mother can win without killing him.”
“That’s just it,” Applejack said, clenching her jaw tightly against the pain as she poured all her strength into getting herself standing again. Fenice looked at her with sweat soaked, worried features. Applejack looked back at her as another shockwave from their parent’s clashing blades washed over them, billowing her hair into her face and nearly knocking her stetson off her head.
She took a hand and laid it over Fenice’s, “Now I know that while my pa might’ve changed, he’s still a’ good man. Hollow or not, he’s my pa, an’ I got a whole other family I need ta meet now. Far as I’m concerned, yer all Apples, an’ it’s time I brought pa home ta all o’ us.”
She’d been holding in the fear of facing her father and what she’d have to do ever since she’d learned the truth about what had happened to his soul after death. But she couldn’t let herself fall to that fear when she saw that her father was still in so much confusion and pain himself. That Resurreccion form told it all, really. He buried himself in regrets, and let it blind his mind, because he was terrified of losing his family a second time. Fear was anathema to the truth, making people hide from what they really felt, or really wanted to do, or knew they had to do but were scared to. Applejack had been afraid of facing her father since the very moment she realized she and her mother would eventually have to do so. And he was so afraid of losing family that he’d willingly lose himself in darkness just to have the kind of strength that supposedly couldn’t be beaten.
Applejack didn’t know if she’d live through the next few minutes, but she did know that she’d never live with herself if she didn’t live those minutes as honestly with herself as possible. As an Apple, together with her family, both human and Hollow.
With those feelings filling her, she forced her wounded body to move, one step at a time, towards the battle ahead. As she did so, the armored gauntlets and leg guards of her Fullbring began to shimmer with heat, pure white steam rising from the armor’s metal surface. Her heart beat stronger with every step, the pain fading to give way to a sensation of growing heat and pressure in her chest that seemed to pulse in time with her heart.
Fenice’s eyes shot wide, because she was familiar with what was happening, and knew she had to act.
As Applejack’s Fullbring started to shine with an intense inner light, as if the metal was being heated within a forge, and the metal started to run to liquid, Fenice ran up and placed a hand on Applejack’s back. She winced as her palm was seared by the heat that was now coming off the farm girl’s very skin, but she had to maintain contact as she helped control and suppress the explosive spiritual energy that was building up inside Applejack.
For Applejack herself, there was no controlling what happened next. Her back arched suddenly as a fountain of energy like molten gold burst out of her chest. Her gauntlets and leg guards melted further, turning to liquid gold that joined the stream coming from Applejack’s heart. Steam blasted forth from every pore, the heat surrounding Applejack drying out the grass around her and causing it to catch fire. The golden energy flowing from her formed into a churning cauldron of shining liquid gold above her, which then undulated with power and started to surge in portions back towards Applejack.
Fenice, knowing she’d suppressed the violent part of the power explosion, managed to leap back in time to avoid further harm besides a few extra burns, and watched as the liquid gold turned into multiple streams that flowed onto Applejack from multiple angles.
The gauntlets and leg armor were reformed, but this time they were significantly more intricate and form fitting in their formation, almost like a second skin across the girl’s limbs. In fact the gold was now covering Applejack’s whole body save for her head, flowing over her chest, stomach, and rear to take the shape of bright, near perfectly form fitting golden armor. The Fullbring’s slight skull motif from its earlier forms remained, but were smoothed out to intricate etchings along the back of the hands and shoulder guards, alongside the faintest circular ports that indicated the parts of the armor that would still open up for jets of energy. In fact there seemed to be more of these ports, located all across the arms, legs, back, and even the chest area, only faintly visible on the otherwise smooth, gold metal.
A golden band formed around Applejack’s stetson, with an upward formed circle in the center that was vaguely apple shaped. On her back the gold transmuted into the form of a long, white cape that was attached smoothly across the back and shoulder guards.
But it wasn’t over, even with the armor fully formed over Applejack’s body. She stepped forward and seemingly on instinct, raised her hand. The cauldron of gold energy above her then began to condense and reshape itself, steam flowing from it as it went from gold colored light to a more deep orange, then a bronze color that was rather akin to the color of Kizuna.
Like a hunk of ore being hammered into shape, the energy solidified and as more steam billowed off of it, it cooled into a metallic sheen. What descended into Applejack’s waiting hand might have been called a ‘lance’, but that word didn’t really do the weapon any level of justice.
First of all, it was larger than any proper lance had the right to be, as if not meant to be held by a human sized person. It just seemed the Apple family favored giant weapons. Next, the main portion of the lance was formed from two pieces that bore deep, helical grooves along their length that extended from the pointed tip to the ever widening base, giving the lance an appearance closer to a giant twist drill than a knightly weapon. Moreover, the two portions were already slowly spinning, the tip portion turning in the opposite way as the wider back portion, and steam kept pouring from the joints between the two drill parts. These in turn connected to a conical back housing that looked almost shield-like, and was attached to a mechanism of cylindrical shape that was reminiscent of some massive revolver chamber, an image only added to by the fact that the handle of the lance clearly had a side handle of it’s own with an obvious trigger.
Altogether the weapon looked huge, unwieldy, and terribly blunt.
In other words; perfect for Applejack. She held it as if she was made for it, and it for her.
With that weapon in hand, and her Fullbring truly and fully completed, Applejack barely noticed the pain that was still present in her body. The broken ribs were still there, of course. Her injuries hadn’t vanished. But the golden armor of her Fullbring extended into her body, forming around her very bones, keeping them together despite the breaks. Spirit energy and adrenaline would keep her going despite the rest of her wounds, at least she hoped.
And even if they didn’t, she’d last long enough to finish things.
It was time for the Apple family to become whole again.