Episode 127: The Decisive Collision, Part 2
Sunset Shimmer had faced many trials and dangers since a certain Equestrian Princess took her hand and hauled a crying Sunset out of a crater made by a giant laser of rainbows and pure harmonic magic. Plenty of times by now she’d risked life and limb against what seemed to be an ever increasingly powerful and earth shaking set of foes. That said, a colossal tree over a hundred meters tall that had just been transmogrified into the shape of a four-limbed, demonic faced, spine covered creature better suited to the studio of a Japanese monster movie set was enough to give Sunset a moment of pause.
She mostly used that moment of pause to question just how much more ridiculous her life could get. The next moment, when the Tree Colossus that Gaia had created let out a roar that was half jet engine and half physical force pressing on Sunset’s bones, she questioned just how much more power Gaia would still have to throw at them. So consumed by the magic flowing out of the geodes, it reminded Sunset Shimmer of what it had felt like to be struck by the Elements of Harmony. She might have been half-crazed herself in that instance, but she remembered that overwhelming pressure and oceanic tide of magic that had fallen on her in a torrent.
Gaia felt entirely too similar. This was Midnight Sparkle all over again, only floral flavored. Well, not entirely. This was worse because not only was it a vast and uncontrollable magical power on the rampage, but it was backed up by a Hollow that was, far as Sunset could tell, up there with the strongest.
So to say Sunset and her friends had their work cut out for them was an understatement so vast, it might as well have been at the bottom of the ocean.
And this meant that Sunset knew she didn’t necessarily have the luxury of playing nice with Gaia. Too much was at stake. If she and the girls lost here, then there was no telling what Gaia might do next. Sure, she said she was only interested in defending her territory, but Sunset was all too aware of how mentally unstable that much uncontrolled magic made a person. Nothing would stop Gaia from on a spur of the moment deciding all of Canterlot City was her “territory”, and who knew how many might die before the woman was stopped?
This had to end here, and now, and there were precious few options available to Sunset and the girls at her side. A lot hinged upon the powers carried by Twilight and Fluttershy. They seemed to be the only things remotely able to get through to Gaia, or rather, to Gloriosa. So far, however, Gaia had proven apt at being able to resist either Fluttershy’s Fullbring or Twilight’s Quincy ability, at least when they were used individually. If only there was a way to get both powers working together and hit Gaia with them simultaneously...
But there was no time to plan. Barely even a second to call out to her friends over that titanic roar that made the air itself bend in protest from the pressure both physical, magical, and spiritual that radiated from Gaia and her transmuted mountain of angry tree. Gaia just attacked, with full fury, and Sunset had to fend for her life against the storm.
Now, spiritual powers and magic were individually potent things, and Sunset and her friends knew from experience that when combined the two types of energy produced even more potent results. However, physics was, at least to a degree, still physics. More mass meant more energy needed to make the mass move. Right at that moment Gaia was trying to make a rather epic amount of plant matter move; tens and thousands of tons of it. And move it did, far faster than anything that size had a rational right to, but it was still big and that meant that as much juice that Gaia was pouring into it, her Tree Colossus was still slower than she herself had been.
Like two wooden oil tankers that top limbs of the Colossus rushed forward in wide, sweeping arcs that created pressure waves ahead of them. The long, wicked claws of the Colossus’ hands bled with violent lavender and sickly jade light. Sunset and her friends scattered, getting out of the way of these limbs the same way someone might try to flee an avalanche, tsunami, or similar natural disaster. Rainbow Dash, fastest of them all, had little trouble zipping between the limbs, while the others still found themselves partially caught by the pressure wave of the strikes if not by the hands themselves. Sunset and Applejack flew up, while Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy went low, followed by a squadron of Rarity’s mounted knights.
The hands clapped together like something trying to smack a mosquito of the air, only with such force and colliding mass that a spherical shockwave smashed the air and hit the girls like a hammer blow. Sunset felt her whole body vibrate, her spiritually fortified armor and body weathering the shockwave but her senses briefly dazed as she had to plant her feet on the reishi of the air to keep her balance.
She hadn’t seen where Twilight had gone? Had she dodged in time!?
A weak flash of purple next to Sunset confirmed that Twilight had teleported to safety as the girl appeared next to her, breathless and sweating.
“How much you have left in the tank?” Sunset asked, short of breath herself. It had been an exhausting day.
“Not a lot,” Twilight admitted, adjusting her glasses, which had nearly slipped off her bleeding nose. Sunset noticed that the red veins of Blut Vene that stood out against parts of Twilight’s skin were weaker and smaller than before. The girl was running on empty. Yet the light was no less resolved in her eyes. “But I’ve got enough left, I think.”
Before Sunset could comment, she saw Rainbow Dash rushing the Tree Colossus’ head, where Gaia still stood like a giant, glowing ‘hit me’ portion of some video game boss. Dash was nothing more than a streak of light leaving an azure blue burn in the air, but Gaia showed off the fact that her Colossus was not without defenses for its creator, or a way to deal with small, fast moving foes.
The upper chest of the Colossus boiled with motion, and a flood of pointed thorns tore themselves up into a forest of deadly, stabbing spears in Dash’s path. Rainbow Dash, not one to back down from any challenge, brought forth her lightning-forged spear and went to work. Blinding streaks of blue carved through the densely packed wooden thorn spears like shears through suburban shrubbery. Dash’s wings burned with prismatic wrath as she broke through the thorny wall and met eye to eye with Gaia, who wore a maddened grin. Flares of rainbow light shot from Dash’s wings, laced with spirals of electricity. Gaia met the attack with the large thorns upon her back, which shot forward and carved into the beams. The energy split like waterfalls upon sharp rocks, spilling upon different parts of the Colossus’ head, but not touching Gaia, who then retaliated with a mouth-born Cero of swirling purple and green light. Dash caught the beam with her spear but was sent flying back like a moth caught in a whirlwind.
Gold flashed from above and Applejack came rocketing down, drill-first, with the air shattering around her in a sonic boom. Gaia’s Colossus moved its arm up to intercept the farmgirl, and the drill impacted with thousands of tons of magically and spiritually enhanced wood. The drill dug into that wood, sending broken wood chips the size of Buicks flying, but at the same time the tree bled a small fountain of brackish green sap at the girl. Where the sap hit her armor, it sizzled like acid, and Applejack let out a strangled cry as some of the poisoned sap struck her cheek. With a growl she pulled back, golden jets from her armor allowing her to fly backwards in an instant as fast as any Flash Step.
Down below, the lower limbs of the Tree Colossus went to work upon Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity.
Slightly smaller than their upper brethren, these limbs moved faster, although that was like saying a frigate moved faster than a battleship. Both still struck with unimaginable strength, their claws bunched together into singular chopping instruments that slammed through the air in blinding arcs at the three girls.
With grace and calm Fluttershy spread an aura of warm light around herself, dozens of golden hands extending from her halo. Several of these hands went to touch Pinkie Pie and Rarity, and both girls felt their fatigue and injuries melting away, while their spiritual energies surged up from Fluttershy’s boosting presence. The other hands formed two clusters and moved as conjoined, single limbs to defend Fluttershy. Each strike of the Colossus’ clawed hand was such that trying to stop it dead would have been difficult, but slight redirections to allow them to miss by a few feet? Readily doable, and Fluttershy’s golden hands went to work, stalling the lower right hand of the Colossus that focused upon her. The near misses still created pressure waves of air and hostile reishi and magic that cut at Fluttershy’s skin. Even if she wasn’t getting directly hit, her body was getting battered by the energies passing by her, leaving her modest clothing tattered in several places with fresh blood.
But she remained a solid wall, taking up at least one limb’s full attention, which in turn made life much easier for Rarity and Pinkie Pie who were left to content with the other.
Rarity, with no more than a thought, commanded her troops and repositioned her gate. The tall, ethereal and regal gateway of crimson red now stood about a hundred yards back from the Colossus, and just a little off center to its right. From the gate fresh knights came forth as damaged ones fell back to recuperate within the gate’s red glow. Archers and cannoneers had taken up new positions at an angle above the Colossus, and from there they began to rain fire down upon the living mountain of wood. Arrows and spears exploded with blood red energy in a darting swarm, while concentrated cannon fire blew chunks out of the Colossus’ shoulders, pockmarking it. The Colossus’ sheer mass made it so the withering hail of fire could only do so much, but it was a stinging distraction, if nothing else, and provided cover for more of Rarity’s knights to regroup.
Aside from a small squad she kept near herself, she’d pulled all her knight’s back. Not because they would be useless, but because she had a different stratagem in mind that using them in a full frontal assault. Ever thinking tactically, Rarity knew what Sunset knew, which was that victory here was not defeating this gigantic floral construct, but by defeating its mistress. Her knights were better served in reserve until the right moment, rather than getting smashed to pieces against something this size.
Unless... well, Rarity did smile at a devilish thought, but wasn’t sure her knights could actually do what she was thinking, but since Gaia’s attention was elsewhere she could get away with a little experimentation. In the meantime she focused entirely on avoiding the clawed limb bigger than most whales trying to split her in half. Fortunately Rarity was an excellent dance partner, and could sashay out of harm’s way with the best of them. When she wasn’t blowing herself up. That harsh reminder still sat in the back of her mind, but she kept the thought at bay while zipping about in swift motions to get out of harm’s way.
Meanwhile Pinkie Pie didn’t keep still, as if doing so was even an option for her. With Rarity dancing about like a high-speed hummingbird, Pinkie appeared above the Colossus’ arm just above the leafy elbow joint, holding her hammer above her head while the bells on her jester mostly rang in a giggling chorus.
“They say being a lumberjack is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, but I bet they weren’t even counting trees that try to cut you down,” the girl laughed as the hammer flashed with a neon pink mist, and reshaped itself into a massive, twelve foot long, pink chainsaw, “Groovy!”
With a throaty growl the chainsaw spun to life and Pinkie Pie dug in, the spinning blade biting deep into the arm’s surface. It got such a few feet in as Pinkie Pie experienced the same surge of poisonous blood that Applejack had faced, but Pinkie Pie reacted with swifter assurance. Mostly because Pinkamena took over and guarded their shared body with a covering of thick, blood red tendrils that sprang from their aura and covered them like shell.
Pinkamena kept the chainsaw going, but she felt the arm shift beneath her, and yanked the chainsaw out and transformed it back into a hammer just in time to block as a smaller, secondary arm grew out from the very wound that had just been inflicted and slammed her back with enough force to send them reeling like a pinball.
Thinking quickly, Sunset realized it would be hard to get close to Gaia while those four arms were active, with the exception of Dash with her incredible speed. But given that Rainbow Dash’s last attempt to get close had left her signed and smoking from having to block a point-blank Cero, Sunset knew it was a bad idea to rely on Dash alone being able to get close. The defenses of the Colossus had to be worn down, first.
“Everyone!” she shouted, “Pick an arm and take it out! Don’t let up until it’s busted! Twilight, stay close to me. Conserve your energy.”
“I understand,” Twilight said, readying her bow.
From atop the Tree Colossus’ head, Gaia's voice boomed like a peal of thunder, “Hah! As if I’d just let you do as you please!”
Scorching orbs of power gathered at the tips of the thorns on her back and inside the palms of her clawed hands, and Gaia started to discharge spiraling Cero blasts at Applejack and Rainbow Dash, likely because the pair were the closest and easiest to target. Before either sets of beams could hit, Sunset moved in an incredibly fast and powerful arc, her wings flaring bright.
She smashed Hikari into the first pair of beams, the shining shield bursting with an aura of white light as Sunset rammed her full spiritual pressure into her Zanpaktou’s shield. Angling it, she felt a moment of satisfaction as she deflected one set of beams into the other, the Ceros slamming together and detonating in mid-air before reaching her friends.
“Thanks fer the save!” Applejack said, and Sunset nodded.
“Leave defense to me. You guys take care of these arms!” she said, and then she and her friends went to work.
She heard Gaia’s snarling frustration as the woman set out more blasts targeting Sunset’s friends, but each time Sunset moved with all the speed she could muster to impose Hikari into the path of the Ceros. Each hit caused no small bit of strain on the shield, but Sunset felt her Zanpaktou’s twin spirits and knew both Hokori and Hikari were burning bright with eagerness. They were more than happy to shut down Gaia’s offensive, at least for however long they could. It wasn’t a perfect defense. As fast as Sunset was, she couldn’t intercept every beam Gaia fired, but it made things much easier for her friends to fight. Twilight helped while still conserving her strength, mostly by using her Variable to alter the trajectories of any Cero beams that Sunset couldn’t get to by firing reishi arrows into them. Even altering the trajectory by a few inches was enough to give the other girls time and room to dodge while they attacked the limbs.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack flew together, teaming up to focus upon the upper right arm while doing their best to dodge the left one. Even if they did not have to worry about Gaia’s Cero beams, the Colossus itself was not letting them attack with ease. The upper right arm slashed its claws through the sky with increasing force, ejecting streams of fiery green and purple magic that scorched the air in its wake. Thorns projected from its wrists and arm, firing like miniature missiles that tracked in on the girls. Applejack held her drill lance aloft and as she flew in a high angled arc, she kicked outward and fired a series of golden beams from her armor’s legs and boots. Each beam incinerated dozens of thorn missiles, and pounded the Colossus’ arm in a steady stream of explosions. Rainbow Dash wove about in a complex flight pattern, making countless thorn missiles go careening off in vain attempts to follow her, before slicing out with her spear and sending an arc of dozens of powerful lightning bolts to scorch the arm’s hand.
Applejack nearly misjudged that hand’s clawing distance and as the hand passed by, her armor groaned in protest and sparked from the sheer pressure of the near missing tearing at the armor’s surface.
The farmgirl’s freckled features pinched in consternation as she looked for a weak spot anywhere on the arm, "Cansanrit thing is tougher n’ an old oak.”
“We’ve taken some chunks out,” Dash said, nodding to where Applejack’s drill had hit earlier, then at the crimson bursts of light that still slammed into the Colossus from Rarity’s cannons, “And Rares’ fancy dudes have been pelting it in the shoulders. Hey, you remember when I dislocated mine that one day at practice?”
“Thought ya said never ta talk ‘bout that,” Applejack said, her face briefly reddening as she remembered helping her friend off the field that day and resetting the shoulder themselves, because Dash had insisted she needed to play in the game the next day rather than go to the hospital. That had been the first time she’d realized how tough Rainbow Dash really was. And how stubborn.
“Yeah,” Dash said, “Was thinking maybe all that weight on the shoulder will make this dude weak to hits there.”
“Worth a’ try,” Applejack agreed, and stepped in front of Rainbow Dash as a pulsating green Cero beam that had slipped past Sunset and Twilight got close and she smashed the beam dead on with her drill lance. The spinning lance ignited with golden energy as Applejack set her feet and grit her teeth, and slammed the Cero beam aside like a star baseball hitter. “Anyhows, better do this fast. This lady ain’t got an ounce o’ quit n’ her an’ it’s tickin’ me off somethin’ fierce.”
“I hear that!” Dash said, and the pair both started to fly straight for the Colossus’ right shoulder.
Timing their movements with one another, they both zig-zaged across each other’s paths, blue and gold energy trails intermixing as the pair rushed the giant wall of wood before them. The Tree Colossus tried to pull its right arm back while aiming with its left, where each finger extended like a living battering ram at the girls. The clawed fingers stabbed through the air at super-sonic speeds, but Applejack and Rainbow Dash were faster still, their erratic flight patterns throwing off the aim of their attacker. A crackling cobalt aura surrounded Rainbow Dash as she gathered power into her spear, while Applejack’s armor filled with gold light and her drill lance spun to a blinding speed.
Both girls struck the right shoulder simultaneously, Dash unleashing as much thunderous lightning as she could from the tip of her spear, and at the same time Applejack opened up the tip of her still spinning lance and triggered the cannon within.
The thick bark hide of the Colossus’ shoulder just where it joined with the arm started to bulge unnaturally, like dough that was rising unevenly in the oven. Then strands of lightning and explosions of gold energy burst out of the wooden surface and ruptured the gargantuan monstrosity’s shoulder in a showering rain of wood and poisonous green sap. Both girls had to dodge back to avoid the deadly spray, but by the end of it the upper right arm hung limply from a ruined and mangled shoulder.
One down, three to go.
The smaller, lower arms redoubled their speed against Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy, focusing upon the latter in a double-pronged assault in which both hands stabbed at the girl from above and below like someone trying to pinch a fly between two gigantic butcher knives.
Fluttershy focused all of the many golden hands from her halo upon the descending claw above her, sending forth a wave of them to grasp onto the limb and arrest its movement. Shockingly, despite the thousands of tons of crushing death coming at her, Fluttershy’s many gold hands slammed into it with sufficient force to bleed its momentum and then stop it dead in its tracks. Part of this was the simple potency of Fluttershy’s spectral limbs, but much of the rest was her Fuilbring’s power coursing into the Tree Colossus and weakening the spirit energy empowering it.
Of course this left her defenseless against the other lower limb coming at her from below, but Fluttershy had acted in simple faith, trusting in her friends, who did not let her down.
A cascade of gleaming red slammed down around Fluttershy, a barrier of purest red crystal that was shaped like a concave shield covered in thick, deadly spikes three meters thick and twice as long. The Colossus’ hand impacted this crystalline barrier and its sharp claws grinded against the spikes of the crimson crystal in a starburst of sparks. Rarity laughed musically, her blade outstretched as she directed a torrent of crystal weapons that formed around her and dove upon the halted hand like a swarm of hungry sharks.
While her knights were the strongest form of her completed power, her ability to form crystal constructs had not lessened in the slightest. In fact, Rarity’s Fullbring could create crystal structures faster and more potently than ever before, which she demonstrated not just with the weapons carving chunks from the hand she’d halted, but at the same time creating a large crystalline wedge that she positioned just above the other limb where Pinkie Pie’s morphed hammer had chainsawed out a piece.
“Pinkie Pie, darling, if you could finish the job?” Rarity said.
Streaking up over the crystal wedge, leaving a trail of pink mist in her wake, Pinkie Pie saluted and hefted her hammer, which grew to a comically large size as several Pinkamena clones appeared around her to help heft the oversized hammer’s handle.
“On three girls!...THREE!”
Cracking down with the gigantic hammer, they struck the wedge right on the head, which drove it deep into the gouge in the arm. Wood shattered and split, and the wound opened up even wider when Rarity transformed the wedge, expanding it into a flat, circular disc that ended up severing the arm cleanly from the inside out.
By now the other arm that had been stopped by Rarity’s crystal barrier had pulled back, but just enough to aim its palm openly at the shield of red crystal and gather an aura of vibrating purple and green power. A thick Cero beam discharged right atop of the barrier, shattering it, but Fluttershy had simply moved aside by now, moving with such speed she appeared like a golden apparition that just appeared next to the discharging hand. Her expression was calm, but almost frightfully detached as she pulled back a palm... and curled it into a fist.
Her reiatsu exploded out in an aura of gold so bright it was practically pure white, and scores of spectral arms rose from her halo and then gathered around Fluttershy’s upper right arm. The hands merged until they became one large, golden first that would have been able to pick up a small yacht, with motes of gold like floating around it. Fluttershy set her feet in a wide stance, closed her eyes, and murmured, “Enlightenment Technique; Even Mountains Shall Fall.”
She didn’t so much throw her fist forward as simply touched it upon the surface of the Colossus’ arm, just above the wrist, so fast that it didn’t look like Fluttershy had even moved. There was no impact or gust of great force. Merely stillness, for a single millisecond. Then there was a cracking noise like a thousand trees breaking at once at the base of the trunk. Splintering webs of broken wood exploded outward in an impact crater from the point where Fluttershy’s knuckle had brushed the wood, and the whole titanic limb distorted and bent backwards like someone’s arm if it had been hit at the wrist by a sledgehammer.
Of the two lower limbs of the Tree Colossus, the one on the right had been severed entirely by Rarity and Pinkie Pie’s combined efforts, and Fluttershy had badly damaged the left one, leaving it mangled if still technically intact.
With only the upper left limb still fully functional, the Colossus’ offensive capability should have been reduced, but Sunset got a clear look of Gaia’s face and saw the woman wasn’t wearing a look of concern, but rather her lips were drawn back in a snarling smile.
“Damage my creation all you like, children! Do you think it makes a difference?”
The thorny vines at the bottom of Gaia’s form dove into the Colossus, and streams of magic poured out of her and into the Colossus. All of the girls saw the wounds they’d inflicted upon the massive tree construct start to bubble with more sap, but also fill with glowing green bursts of magical light. The wood started to regrow, filling in gaps and repairing broken areas.
“Arrgh! No fair!” Rainbow Dash shouted, “Bosses don’t get to heal themselves! That’s freakin’ cheating!”
Gaia chortled, “I felt the same about Chrysalis. It’ll feel nice to turn the tables on her, when I get my hands on her scrawny neck. Now then, you’ve all had your fun. I believe it’s my turn now. I’m rather tired of watching you block all of my Ceros with that shield of yours, Sunset Shimmer. Let’s see about giving you something you can’t block!”
With a rumbling noise that built up from the tree’s very roots, the Colossus raised its head and opened its maw of thorn-like fangs wide. Glyphs of magical green light traveled up and down its humongous form, and the spiny thorns upon its back all lit up with arcs of verdant green and dark lavender power that leaped from spine to spine until it gathered around the Colossus’ mouth.
The attack that was coming consisted of a singularly powerful sensation of spiritual pressure and magical might, and Sunset could feel that it was easily the strongest move Gaia had thrown at them yet. In fact this may well have been Gaia’s trump card. As seemingly infinite as Gaia’s power was, Sunset could tell there was some genuine strain now on Gaia’s face as she poured power into the Colossus in readying this attack. The mere fact that it was taking so many seconds to charge up, as opposed to how swift and effortlessly she’d been throwing Ceros earlier, told Sunset this was going to be serious.
But it also was the window of opportunity she’d been waiting for, and she hadn’t been alone in that.
“Sunset!” Rarity said, appearing next to her, “I do believe this is our chance.”
“Huh? Chance o’ what?” Applejack asked, and Twilight, who was standing nearby, gave both Sunset and Rarity a heavy look.
“To get close to her,” Twilight said, “An attack this big will temporarily weaken Gaia and likely leave her vulnerable for a moment."
“Yeah, assuming we survive it,” Rainbow Dash said, and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie arrived, flying up next to the group.
Pinkie Pie’s mask shifted to black as Pinkamena’s more serious voice said, “Grouping up seems like a bad idea. Just saying. I don’t think any of us can block what’s coming. I couldn’t eat all of it even with Pinks physics destroying cartoon powers.”
“...I’ll block it,” Sunset said, “You girls just make sure you get in close to her and clobber her when I do.”
“Uh, ya sure hun’?” Applejack asked, and Rarity stepped up next to Sunset and placed a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Let me help, Sunset. I have something I want to try with my knights.”
Sunset could sense they were out of time, so she nodded to Rarity, “Alright, you and me then. The rest of you, when Rarity and I block what’s coming, make sure Twilight and Fluttershy get inside striking distance to Gaia, no matter what!”
“Sure thing, sugarcube!”
“Can do!’
“Okie Dokie Lokie!”’
With her friends' affirmations still ringing in her ears, Sunset stood ready with her shield, Rarity next to her, while her other friends spread out below her, prepared to charge when the moment was right. The air was practically humming with power, and Sunset could see distorted waves in the air, like abundant heat, filling large gaps in the sky. It was like the clash of gathering spirit power and magic was tearing at the seams of reality itself.
By now the Colossus’ mouth was filled with an eye searing brightness of pulsating colors, mostly a deep swirl of various greens and violets, merging at a single point to form a nearly black core.
Atop the head, Gaia let out a breathy cackle and threw her hands forward, eyes wide with unleashed fury.
”Desecacion!” (Desiccation)
The Tree Colossus let out a bellow not unlike a pyroclastic eruption, and the energy within its mouth shot out in a flood. However, the beam had been angled at a slightly upward arc, and Sunset saw why a moment later as the beam began to split apart into first two, then four, then eight beams. It split again and again until the sky filled with a rain of hundreds of pulsing multi-colored beams, each bearing a black core at their tips. These beams curved up, then down, all converging towards Sunset and her friends. And Sunset rose to meet them.
Do or die, girls, she told her Zanpaktou spirits, It’s time to try it out!
She felt the pure, prideful eagerness of Hokori, and the quiet, steady resolve of Hikari. There was also an undercurrent of concern. The last time they tried this during training, Sunset had learned the hard way that there were some flames she wasn’t immune to from her own Zanpaktou.
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Nine days earlier...
]”This isn’t like the Saishu-Tekina Hidori girl,” Hokori said, staring Sunset in the eye as she looked up at Sunset, who sat on the throne of their shared Inner World, “That attack throws our full power out at range. This technique concentrates that same power up close, and sharpens it to a point that even you aren’t able to keep from getting burned.”
“But it’d let me effectively break through almost any attack or defense, right?” Sunset asked, “I mean, Starlight... I couldn’t touch her, even if my attacks landed, because of how her Zanpaktou works, but this isn’t about her. I’m more worried about Grogar and the other Espada. He blocked us, straight on, without anything other than his own raw power. I can’t rely on the Final Phoenix to end every battle, the way that move drains me. What if I had to fight multiple Espada or similar opponents, or deal with several elites like them in one battle after another? I need more cards in my hand, guys.”
“It’s true that Starlight Glimmer is a problem that no amount of teaching you our techniques will help with,” Hikari said, flanking Hokori, although she stood calmly while Hokori stalked about the throne room, “It’s also true that to face consecutive foes of the same level as the Espada would be hard for you, right now. But Hokori’s concerns are that you’re moving too far, too fast, with a technique that can hurt you if you’re not ready for it.”
“In case neither of you have noticed, I’m going to get hurt, regardless. I’ve managed to handle the other techniques you’ve shown me. Heck, you told me the Final Phoenix is basically the strongest one we have. So isn’t this other one weaker?”
Hokori shot her a hard look, “It’s not about weaker or stronger, Sunset. Not with this... Not with the Black Flame...”
“Simply try to understand this, Sunset,” said Hikari, her voice not unkind, but filled with a low, solemn note, “You and your friends have grown so much, and will grow much more still, but you differ from them in the fact that your power stems from us, a Zanpaktou. You have learned our names and identity, and hence attained Shikai. You have earned our trust and respect, and hence attained Bankai. But those are not your final steps, nor the final lessons for you to learn. To obtain the full measure of our power, of your power, you still have a long path to walk.”
A part of Sunset wanted to argue that she didn’t have time to walk a ‘long’ path, but it wasn’t as if she didn’t get what Hiarki was talking about. Bankai might have been the true form of a Zanpaktou’s power, but it was obvious that there was a lot of room upon that plateau to expand. She was ready, and willing, to do whatever it took to do just that, which was why she’d been training so hard. But why was this particular technique such a big deal?
“You still haven’t told me what this ‘Black Flame’ is, and why it’s different from the others,” she pointed out. Hokori and Hikari exchanged a look, the vermilion demoness throwing up a hand and sighing as she shrugged in frustration.
“You’re better at this crap than I am,” she told the angelic spirit, “You explain it.”
Hikari nodded slowly, and held out hand, and upon her palm danced three, small globes of flame; blue, green, and white. “You know the Aoihi Senko, the Midorihi Hashira, and the Shiroihi Yume. Each draws its strength from a different aspect of who you are. The Blue Flame of your pride, adaptable and powerful, always ready to spring forth. The Green Flame of your intellect, thoughtful and patient when needed, waiting for the right moment to strike. The White Flame of your love for others, allowing you to be in more than one place to protect everyone you must. But the last flame within you...”
Even Hikari looked pained as a pin-prick of darkness appeared above her palm to join the other flames, less a color and more a void dark specter of black fire that appeared to eat all other light around it, “The Black Flame of your wrath, exists solely to destroy, utterly, the targets of your fury. It is not a flame you will find easy to control, and unlike the others, this one will harm you as readily as your foes if you don’t know how to control it.”
Sunset couldn’t deny there was a certain twist of unease in her as Hikari spoke of this ‘Black Flame’. She was intimately familiar with herself when she got royally pissed off. She knew she had a potent core of anger inside her, and that the last time she really let it get the better of her she’d made some serious mistakes. Could she control her wrath in such a way that it served her needs, rather than pushed her into more errors?
“Show me how,” she said, not backing down from the fear.
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With the sky consumed by a spread of hundreds of beams falling towards her and her friends, Sunset flew towards the downpour of destruction. The shield of Hikari was thrust forward, the white metal filled with luminous energy. Hokori was drawn back, the flamberge gripped tightly in Sunset’s hand. Her mental focus was sharpened, but rather than focused to a narrow point, Sunset had expanded her sense out to encompass the whole of the attack descending from the sky, feeling every individual beam as if seeing each raindrop in a storm.
She could sense her friends on the move, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie making a straight charge towards Gaia’s position on the Colossus' head. Rarity hung back, and Sunset felt the girls knights gathering around her in a tight, spherical formation, although Sunset wasn’t sure what Rarity was doing just yet. Whatever the case was, Sunset trusted Rarity’s judgment implicitly, and so didn’t think about it any more as she put all of her attention on what she was doing.
The first thing Sunset had to do was allow Hikari to take the brunt of what was coming. The shield expanded a field of translucent white light around itself, like a half dome of protective spirit power that looked like the shimmer of sunlight reflecting on lake water. Sunset had expanded barriers like this with Hikari a few times before, but this was the largest she’d ever tried to make it, the half dome spanning about ten meters to either side of her. She then curved her flight path to follow her friends, providing a screen for them as the power of the Desecacion struck.
The first few beams hit like a giant smith’s hammer upon an anvil, but that soon became more like the crashing of a thousand spears, if each spear was made of earth splitting thunder and the rage of a screaming god. Emerald and lavender explosions of consuming light exploded across Sunset’s shield, and she felt the strain of her Zanpaktou and the gut-punch to her own spirit energy as she struggled to put out enough reiatsu to stave off the rain. Because it didn’t stop. Desecacion continued, as if the beam the Colossus had fired could keep splitting forever, forming an endless waterfall of death that would leave nothing but barren, dead land in its wake.
Yet Sunset and her shield acted as a steadfast umbrella against the torrential downpour, providing an open space of safety for her friends to advance, although with each fraction of a second Sunset felt her spirit being battered by the blows to the shield.
But this was important, because her shield, for every blow, transferred a portion of power from the blow into Hokori’s eager blade.
Power built, more and more, and the red hot flames grew hotter. This was normally the point that Sunset could unleash an Aoihi Senko, but this time she didn’t let the flames out in such an explosive manner. This time, she kept the flames close, let the thicken and gathered around the flamberge’s edge as she looked within and focused upon... calm, still fury.
She did not want to kill Gloriosa or Gaia, truly, but she was furious with them. But beyond that, she was furious with the forces of this world that had caused all this fighting to begin with. The Soul Reapers, the Hollows, the Quincy, even if each thought themselves in the right, they had come to Sunset Shimmer’s city, and brought danger to her people, her friends!
Anger was an emotion that came naturally to Sunset, but controlling it had never been easy for her. Anger burned, and demanded release. By its nature, anger didn’t want to be controlled or contained. It wanted to be set free to destroy whatever the source of it was. In many cases, this tended to make things worse, but if one didn’t fear the anger, if one could face it, let it pass through their heart, and realize it was merely another form of energy, then it was possible to sharpen wrath into a blade.
”Kuroihi Moegara!” (Blackfire Cinders)
Upon Sunset’s invoking words, the flames around her flamberge turned blacker than the depths of space. Flickering about with hungry dark tongues, the black flames curled around the edge of Hokori and merged with the blade to such an extent that one couldn't see the flamberge’s form any longer. Instead it looked as if Sunset held a long, thickly dark shard of void, a flame that was the absence of all light and the personification of a wrathful hunger to destroy.
And it burned. Sunset’s teeth grit so hard she thought she might have chipped a tooth. Pain filled her palm where the grip on her sword burned her flesh. The heat of the black flames scoured her even through the flame resistant armor of her Bankai, and only her supreme focus let her act and think through the agony.
She swung Hokori forward, into the very heart of the raining field of destructive beams that still descended upon her.
The flames of the Kuroihi Moegara ate the beams like a thresher in a wheat field. The black fire extended only a dozen meters at most from the edge of her sword as she swung it, moving in swift, black bands of non-light. It wasn’t really a ranged attack, as Hokori had said, but wherever those dark flames went, the beams of the Desecacion were consumed and broken apart like leaves upon a flaming whirlwind, burning to cinders of destroyed power. The black flames annihilated the very bonds of spiritual particles, breaking down the powerful beams before they could reasonably explode or impact.
In this manner, with the barrier of Hikari still forging a path ahead, and the dark flames of Hokori reaping that path wider, did Sunset Shimmer safeguard her friends as they advanced upon Gaia.
The Desecacion still sent dozens of beams flying elsewhere in their wild abandon, destroying entire swaths of forest, and yet despite this, there was a clear area of safety around Camp Everfree itself. Sunset realized that even as bloodthirsty and going all out as Gaia was, the woman was still taking care not to allow harm to befall the camp. Was that Gloriosa’s doing? At least it was one less thing to worry about, as Sunset was having to put everything she had into either blocking or cutting down the seemingly endless stream of beams falling upon her and trying to eradicate her friends.
It felt as if her skin was boiling from the head of the black flames, but she marveled at how they burned through beams in the same way a plasma torch might melt through steel rebar. However, Sunset noticed for every beam she cut down, something was left behind. A point of gleaming darkness, like a black pearl. Those had nothing to do with her own flames, did they? No, these still held Gaia’s reiatsu inside them, and Sunset realized there were now scores of them left in her wake from all the beams she had destroyed with the Kuroihi Moegara.
She remembered how each beam had possessed a core of darkness at their tip, and before she could question further what these were, she sensed Gaia’s power flow through those small orbs of darkness, each no larger than a baseball.
They were ‘seeds’, Sunset realized, as she saw them all blossom and open in a flare of purple light, each one forming a floating orchid flower composed of a scintillating combination of magic and spirit power. These energy flowers then sprain to life on their own, following Sunset like magnetic mines, each vibrating with violent energy. So focused was Sunset on defending her friends from the still descending beams that she couldn’t spare anything to defend herself with. If she moved Hikari’s shield or tried to attack the incoming flower mines with her black flames, she’d leave either herself or her friends exposed!
Fortunately, Rarity had anticipated something like this. Having heard Gaia’s words of confidence that Sunset couldn’t block the Desecacion, Rarity had surmised there’d be some kind of nasty trap to it, and so had prepared her own knights in a manner she had theorized was possible but was only trying now for the first time. While Sunset had been protecting the other girls’ advance, Rarity had gathered her knights around herself in a close formation, and spread her spirit energy into them.
Fundamentally each knight was an extension of her Fullbring’s power to form constructs of her combined blood and spirit power, and were potent focal points for that ability. In theory they should be able to be as mutable as any weapon Rarity made, her imagination being the only theoretical limit to what she and her knights could construct.
And so, to fight something gigantic, Rarity thought to herself, Why should I not go for size as well?
So it was that with her mind working with the speed and intensity she put into any of her artful projects, Rarity formed the image of what she desired in her mind and set her knights and her power to work on forming it, hoping that she could do this fast enough to help Sunset. Even as Rarity had noticed the seeds and flowers blooming from the beams Sunset had destroyed, Rarity’s knights started to merge together. Armored limbs shifted and moved, while plates of crystal expanded and interlocked. Weapons morphed into joints and rivets, while growths of rose red crystal took the shape of larger ligaments and heavier plates of armor.
The cannons maintained their general form, but clustered together and merged with a monolithic chest, while entire squads of knights shifted shape to form the edges of a growing behemoth of crystal. In the span of a few seconds, what was once two hundred knights had combined and reshaped into a singular form that was a good forty meters in height; a prodigious knight construct whose armored form radiated Rarity’s crimson aura and bore all of her hallmarks of style. Rose and ivy engravings upon its shoulders and chest were quite prominently, and its helmet bore a tiara-like crest. The helmet actually opened up, revealing a small cockpit area with a ruby throne for Rarity to sit upon before the helmet closed, and she directed her knight into battle.
Much like with the Tree Colossus, there was a sacrifice of speed for having made something this size, but Rarity could feel a difference in durability and power. Rather than spreading her spirit energy through multiple forms, this single knight could withstand much more punishment and strike harder than ever before, albeit without the versatility and speed she was accustomed to fighting with. Still, for this instance, toughness and strength was more useful, as she demonstrated by ending her knight straight into the path of the energy flowers chasing Sunset.
“Keep going, Sunset, and leave trimming these troublesome flowers to me!” Rarity said, feeling every faucet of her combined knight in her mind. Sanguine crystal flowed like liquid and became a pair of elegant leaf-shaped longswords in the giant knight’s hands, each blade engraved with ivy patterns. The knight slashed both blades into the oncoming rush of glowing orchids, and upon contact the flowers exploded with geysers of noxious dark violet waves of power.
Rarity felt the reishi inside her construct’s swords being torn into by these waves, as if the spirit energy was being sucked dry. Her keen eye noticed that as she slashed through some of the flowers, the others that hadn’t reached her yet grew larger, as if the power sucked out by the first batch of flowers was being transferred to the others, making them stronger.
Hmph, such a nasty ability. Then I’ll not let then get close!
At Rarity’s thought, the chest of her knight slipped aside several plates, revealing the cannons that had now merged into circular arrangements, like oversized gatling guns. With a staccato roar the gatling cannons opened fire on the rest of the onrushing flowers of deadly energy, blasting dozens from the air. Rarity also formed lines of ballistae upon the shoulders of her giant knight and added to the hail she was sending against the flowers from a series of crystalline bolts.
Yet even as she destroyed more and more of these flying flower bombs, she saw scores more rising from the forest, wherever those beams had landed.
And those beams weren’t done. Some curled down from the sky to strike Rarity’s massive knight from above, the explosions rocking her within the helmet mounted cockpit area as chunks of crystal were blasted apart.
“Rarity!” Sunset shouted, but Rarity was fast to shout back.
“Keep! Going!”
With no other choice, Sunset doggedly continued on, serving as the proactive umbrella for her friends flying just a short distance below her, staving off the storm of horrific beams that kept falling upon them in a seemingly unending river. The searing pain of the black flames were almost impossible for Sunset to ignore, to the point that she felt like if she looked upon her hand at this point she might only see darkened bone, but she kept her grip on Hokori and continued to swing the blade in whipping arcs of consuming ink-black fire.
She felt Hikari begin to chip, the shield and its energy barrier starting to crack from absorbing the constant barrage of beams, but they were almost to Gaia now, no more than fifty feet away. Gaia tried to raise her Tree Colossus' arms, although the right one wasn’t fully healed and the lower ones were still damaged. A fresh barrage of thorny missiles grew upon the bark of the left arm and fired at Sunset’s friends, but this was not the same kind of threat as the Desecacion, and her friends barreled straight towards them.
Pinkie Pie took the lead, twirling her hammer and her aura of deep red and black rimmed tendrils leaping forward. “Hate to tell it to you Gaia, but your attacks suck!”
The front of her hammer flipped open like a hatch, and the noise of the world's largest vacuum cleaner clicked on as a suction force of massive proportions started to pull in the thorn missiles into the hammer itself. Any missiles that tried to veer to the side or move around the suction area got smacked down by the many flailing, tooth filled tendrils from Pinkie’s aura.
Rising up in a thick wall, the Colossus' mangled right arm tried to backhand the girls, but Applejack met it with a double kick empowered by every jet of energy firing from the back of her legs and shoulders. The impact didn’t stop the Colossus' arm, but it did deflect it downward, crunching a sizable crater in it as it fell back down in a broken mess. The hit did cost Applejack, however, as the armor on her legs became cracked and she felt the bones in her right leg, which took the brunt of the impact, break cleanly in several places. Gritting back a cry of pain, Applejack flew on with her friends, and they were past the Colossus' arms and in the clear, with a straight shot at the head.
Sunset saw this and felt the slackening of the beams coming down on her, and could finally see what the source of all those beams had even been. When the Colossus had fired the Desecacion, the beam had seemingly split into hundreds, but some of that power had stayed high in the air to form a truly enormous violet and green colored orchid formed of pure spirit power and magic. This giant, hanging satellite had been firing a constant stream of beams on the land beneath it, but finally it had burned through its energy and the giant flower became shriveled and dark, then turned to motes of dissipating purple light as it fired its final beams.
Even with the barrage over, the legacy of the attack remained in a swarm of smaller flowers, which Rarity was still dealing with using her huge combined knight. Rarity spun about in the massive construct, swinging its long blades and firing constantly with the chest mounted cannons and shoulder mounted ballistae. The swarm of flowers were being detonated in droves, but this meant that the survivors got larger and more potent as they absorbed energy into them. Before long Rarity was surrounded by half a dozen empowered flowers around the size of large houses.
These flowers converged on her knight, but Rarity had anticipated this and had prepared a final defense. The gate that was the true core of her Fullbring, she had moved it beneath her and her combined knight, and with its gate swung wide she dropped herself straight into the gate, just as the flowers converged and detonated in a gigantic, swirling purple and emerald explosion.
Sunset could only assume Rarity was alright, since she still sensed the gate and Rarity’s reiatsu along with it.
And now, there was nothing between them and Gaia.
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight all landed on different sides of Gaia, atop the wide stage formed by the Colossus' head.
Sunset arrived just above them. In her left hand, Hikari was tarnished by cracks, the shield's bright gleam left the duller with all the power expended from it. Hokori was still a solid wedge of charcoal colored flame, seething in the air. Gaia looked at them all with the first real moment of worry cracking her furious features, but that soon passed as her eyes blazed with near solid purple light and her voice boomed, “Fine! We end it here!”
They could all feel that tense moment of quiet clarity in the air; that the battle was about to be decided in the next few seconds. If there were stops still left to be pulled, now was the time to pull them. It all went down in a series of flashing moments, each sliver of a second like a still frame in time.
Rainbow Dash had been building up the strength of her electricity with every motion she’d been making the entire fight, and released that stored power through her spear, the lightning blade jumping in size to over three meters as she blitzed Gaia in a series of thrusting strikes that all blurred into one electrical storm. Gaia took the hits dead on, her body lanced through by the lightning, which jerked her about like a puppet on strings and caused parts of the rose bulb of her lower body to catch fire. But with pure unrelenting fury Gaia still managed to grab Rainbow Dash’s spear and pulled the girl into a knee to the gut that indented Dash’s armor and sent blood bursting from her mouth.
In a golden rush, Applejack flared out all the jets on the back of her armor and went into a spiral with her lance, smashing it into Gaia’s side so hard that one of Gaia’s back thorns broke off from the impact and sent Gaia skidding across the head of the Colossus.
Pinkie Pie was waiting for, her, or rather Pinkamena, whose expression turned into a dark grin of feral teeth as she smashed the hammer down on the still reeling Gaia, and reality bent around the blow so that Gaia actually turned flat, like a 2-D image, which disoriented Gaia tremendously as Pinkamena followed that attack up with a storm of teeth gnashing tendrils that tore at Gaia’s form.
Yet Gaia’s power surged, pure spiritual pressure and magical energy ripping around her like a blender that tore through Pinkamena’s tendrils and then tore at Pinkamena herself. Bloody cuts appeared across the girl’s body as she was knocked away, and Gaia’s body returned to a three-dimensional state as it shook off Pinkie’s power, although she was disoriented for a nanosecond longer, long enough for Fluttershy and Twilight to rush her. Twilight, with the subtlest of motions, had handed something to Fluttershy, before dashing to the right with a speedy Hirenkayku, upon which she took aim and fired a series of magic infused reishi arrows. The arrows spun a dizzying pattern around Gaia, their paths altering randomly through the Variable as they started to strike at her from multiple sides.
Gaia growled and her thorn vines responded in a flurry, knocking the arrows out of the air before Gaia turned her attention towards Twilight and threw a point blank Cero blast at the Quincy.
Twilight didn’t dodge, because she didn’t have to. Sunset Shimmer landed in front of her, the black flames of her sword cutting forward in a swath that ate into the Cero beam.
At that instant, Fluttershy moved in, striking with a multitude of her golden hands. Gaia turned to the girl and rushed right through the barrage, a straight Sonido of godly speed that saw a hand grip around Fluttershy’s throat even as her gold hands struck Gaia in a series of swift palm strikes. Fluttershy fought to infuse her power into Gaia, to pull upon Gloriosa’s soul and bring the woman’s personality to the fore, even as she felt her throat be pinched shut and the bones of her neck start to grind towards the snapping point.
Gaia’s thorn vines went into a frenzy to keep the other girls at bay, firing a random swarm of Bala reishi bullets. Rainbow Dash, still bleeding from her mouth, flew right into the swarm with a hoarse scream of Fluttershy’s name, her spear smashing Balas left and right. Applejack surged forward as well, ignoring the agony of her broken leg, driving her lance towards Gaia even as the woman sent another Cero blast her way that forced Applejack to plant herself and block the beam.
Sunset finished cleaving the Cero that had been Twilight’s way in half, and saw Fluttershy being choked to death.
“Twi-” she began to say, but Twilight had stepped to the side, and instead of aiming her bow, had a look of pure concentration on her face as she shouted.
“Fluttershy, now!”
Even nearing unconsciousness, Fluttershy was able to act. Of her six real hands, the lower right one uncovered the object Twilight had handed her. A small, silver ginto tube. With ease, Fluttershy popped the top of the tube and spilled the alchemic Quincy water onto Gaia.
Gaia had been careful to not let Twilight hit her with an arrow, knowing that it’d allow Twilight to make use of her power. What Gaia hadn’t expected was that Twilight could use the alchemy of the Quincy to also channel her Variable, using the same reishi strings she used to manipulate her artificial hand.
Both Fluttershy and Twilight activated their powers as one, Fluttershy’s Fullbring all but commanding Gloriosa’s mind to the surface, while Twilight’s variable, acting through the alchemic water, to magnify the effect and try to separate the fused minds of Gaia Everfree and Gloriosa Daisy.
Gaia howled, a keening sound of confusion and overflowing emotions akin to a boiling kettle’s whistle. Inside her, Gaia and Gloriosa, who had been as one entity, started to pull and twist like the two different colored portions of play dough that had been smashed together. Yet the blending was so thorough that even with Fluttershy and Twilight’s power acting in tandem, the spiritual energies of the two souls, Arrancar and human, couldn’t fully pull apart. Gaia’s hand slipped from Fluttershy’s throat as she clutched her own head, shaking it back and forth while still screaming.
Fluttershy fell, coughing and hacking, to her knees, but didn’t let go of her own grip on Gaia, with now several dozen golden hands from her halo holding Gaia in place.
Sunset and Twilight rushed up while the other girls gathered around. The Colossus was thrashing about now, making their footing on the head of the tree monstrosity somewhat tenuous. But then its motions halted as, from the depths of Rarity’s crimson gate, the woman emerged along with her gigantic, combined knight. While the Colossus was distracted, Rarity formed a series of oversized spears and sent them flying into the Colossus's limbs, and upon impact the spears spread a lattice of crystal chains that she used to start binding the creature’s movements.
This at least slowed its thrashing so that the girls weren’t tossed off as they gathered around Gaia, who was still clutching her head and screaming.
“Don’t sound ta me like she’s comin’ ta her senses,” Applejack said.
“Got a set of pipes on her, I’ll give her that,” noted Pinkamena, clutching her bleeding stomach, “Can’t say I dislike the sound.”
“I can... feel them...” Fluttershy said past haggard breaths, “Gaia, and Gloriosa. They’re not coming apart. They’re in so much pain...”
“We’ve paralzed them for the moment with Fluttershy’s Fullbring and my Schrift, but it’s not enough,” Twilight said, “The moment we run out of spirit energy, I think they’ll merge back together again.”
“I could try delving into their souls,” Fluttershy said, “Talk to them both.”
“If talkin’ was gonna work, hun, it’d of done the trick by now,” Applejack pointed out, but Sunset stepped closer to Fluttershy and knelt down.
“Fluttershy, this ability to go into people’s souls. Is that what you used on Gilda?”
“Yes.”
“Can you... ugh... send someone else in, instead of yourself?” Sunset asked, trying to keep her voice level while her hand remained in a state of burning torment. The pain wasn’t precisely getting easier to ignore, and Fluttershy’s eyes turned towards her and the black flames flowing from Sunset’s sword with instant concern blossoming in her eyes.
“Oh my, Sunset, what are you doing to your hand with those flames?”
“N-nevermind that, just tell me, can you send me into Gaia instead of yourself?” Sunset said quickly. Fluttershy still eyed the dark fire hesitantly, but quickly shook her head.
“I don’t think so, no. It’s kind of a personal thing,” Fluttershy admitted.
“What, Sunset, were you thinking you’d be able to do something Fluttershy couldn’t?” said Rainbow Dash, wiping her mouth clean of blood trickle. Her eyes also slide towards the inky fires coating Hokori, but the girl seemed to understand they had other things to focus on.
“I don’t know. Maybe? I...aaagh...” Sunset couldn’t stop a groan as the pain was becoming too much for her to block out. At this point Applejack stepped up with a stark look of worry.
“The heck r’ them dark flames ‘bout anyhows?” the farmgirl asked, “If they’re hurtin’ ya, why don’t ya let the sword go?”
“No time to explain. Got to hold onto them, in case I need them still. Don’t know if I can reactivate the technique again if I stop. Ugh, If I could just get through to them, both Gaia and Gloriosa, then I won’t need the Kuroihi Moegara, but if I can’t, then this might be the only thing left that’ll... destroy the geodes.”
“Wait,” said Twilight, “There’s a way. Fluttershy, use your power, but then let me use my Variable on it. Instead of yourself delving into their soul, I’ll switch you with Sunset.”
Flutteshy blinked in surprise, but then nodded quickly in enthusiastic understanding, “Yes, that might work. Sunset, hold onto my shoulder. You too, Twilight. I’ll amplify your power when you use it.”
Sunset and Twilight both did so, taking up opposite positions and placing their hands on Fluttershy’s shoulders. Sunset was careful to keep the black flames from getting close to any of her friends. While the heat seared her, it remained largely contained around the blade of Hokori itself, so the girls were relatively safe as long as they didn’t come into direct contact. She carefully laid a hand on Fluttershy’s shoulder, who then raised her own hands to place above Gaia’s stomach, just above where the geodes were embedded. Golden light flowed from the palms of her six hands like a soft and gentle river.
“Englightment Technique: Reflections Upon Still Water.”
Just as Fluttershy felt her soul start to delve into the combined souls of Gaia and Gloriosa, Twilight activated her Variable, and that momentum shifted over to Sunset. Sunset felt her soul energy mix with Gaia’s, and then her consciousness slipped away into that vortex of co-mingled souls.
The world around her fell away like grains of sand, and she felt herself pulled into the tulmetious storm that was the combined soul of Gaia Everfree and Gloriosa Daisy.