//------------------------------// // Finale X: The Great Pertender // Story: Sometimes They Call Me Super // by KorenCZ11 //------------------------------// Rarity Belle          All it took for the rumbling to begin was a flick of Persona’s colossal hoof. With Sahaquiel down, Sachiel, the Israfel sisters, Ramiel, and Matarael all charged. Each hoof fall shook the ground, kicking dust and debris from the ruined, burned area up into the air, filling it with ash and soot. All at once, the monstrous ponies split off, singling out targets. To combat this, we tried to stick together, but that didn’t end up working too well.     No guidance from our leader, who was currently having a rolling fit with the source of her widowed status, we might as well have been on our own. Before I knew what to do with myself, I believe one of the Israfel sisters had reached me. She’d stepped on a solid piece of ground, probably an old parking lot, which then flung me into the air. Who exactly the giant was didn’t cross my mind.     Not a second later, she continued her charge, pasting me on her neck and pressing forward to ram into a building behind me. Not a moment too soon, I called time.     ZA WARUDO!     Thinking quickly, I used my cables to swing around… whichever Israfel this was, then shot my cables into the base of her neck in the small of her back. At least here, she’d take most of the impact and I could hide and think for a bit when she realizes she lost me. No matter how flexible a pony is, they may not see this spot on themselves without a mirror. It’s a horror to try and style alone since the root of the mane usually stops here.     Returning time to the world and preparing for impact, Israfel crashed into her target, no doubt in hopes of making me a splatter on it. Staggering back like the building which she’d turned into a pile of rubble jarred her, I took time to take stock of the battlefield.     Persona had found himself a nice seat on top of a set of apartments like it was a stool for him while delighting in watching Applejack tangle with Sahaquiel. The rotten bastard was so full of himself that he didn’t bother joining in the fight at all. Oh well, I suppose that makes it easier for us.     A red-black flash whizzed by, being excitedly chased by a more rabid giant, whom I assumed was Ramiel. Running, jumping, biting at Rainbow with his massive teeth like she was some kind of ball for a dog to chase. Based on the tracks, this isn’t the first time they’ve circled the burned area.     The pale beast was trying to hold her own against another giant not far from me. The kaleidoscope eyes told me this was Matarael. Fluttershy did her best, but she wasn’t exactly winning. It was more her making slashes with the claw she had when she could and running away when it was Matarael’s turn to strike.     The shaking was starting to upset my stomach when it suddenly stopped. Whichever Israfel I had went still and started turning her head left and right. That’s not good.     “Is everypony occupied, or is anypony near the still Israfel? You might know I’m not quite the fighter you ponies are, so I could use a hoof if you have it!”     And then came the spinning. Whether or not she could feel me, all these ponies, most of whom were condemned for insanity and murder if I remember correctly, acted something like wild dogs. Rather than do the smart thing, which would be to roll on her back to force me to move or die, I suppose, this Israfel decided she would chase her tail.     I could feel my organs shift to the side to counter the sudden G-force and nearly lost my guts right then and there. Instead, I pulled my cables in and hunkered down on her back.     “Anypony at all!?” I called out in desperation. Luckily, I was answered.     “Is any pony near you? I can help, but I need a power to borrow!”     Blood! Oh, thank the Goddess. “Fluttershy is somewhere nearby, at least within your range!”     “I see the spinning Israfel, I’ll get closer for you.” The beast added.     “As soon as I give the signal, call time, alright?”     Finally, somepony to get me out of this hell. “Sure. Please hurry.”     Worse than anything, was the nausea. I was going to puke if this kept up much longer, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. With the sort of face mask on my suit, anything that comes out of my mouth goes down my chin and deeper in, and it would just be a horrible mess to clean provided we all survive this, and I simply don’t want to deal with it. Honestly, if I do spill, I’d rather just—     “TOKI WO TOMARE!”     “ZA WARUDO!”     Before I’d even realized what had happened, I’d followed through on the command. Something to do with trained dogs, I suppose. In the frozen world, I unhooked myself from Israfel and woozily made it to standing. Before me was some masculine, hairy monstrosity wearing a hilariously small cape and a Redhoof cosplay so tight around his body that you could see every muscle on him.     “Are you alright?” he asked, offering me one of his claws to steady myself.     “For the moment, I think so.” Smothering an impulse to vomit I made note of how Israfel was stopped. All her hooves were off the ground and her neck was leaning off to one side. She was, even now, still spinning. A thought occurred to me.     “I do believe that we have a chance to perform a test here.”     Beastly Blood tilted his head. “A test?”     I nodded. Making note of how she was angled, I picked out one of the few intact buildings near us at the edge of the burned area. Pointing to my target, I said, “Go to the fourth floor of that building right there. As soon as you’re ready, tell me and I’ll restore time. Once I do, launch yourself at this Israfel with one of your claws ready to spear her. So long as you’re as capable as Fluttershy, it should put you directly into the center of her chest.     “With the way he’s removed himself from the fight, this is still a game to Persona. The players might be different, but the rules are still the same. Especially after seeing where he hides himself, I believe we’re still after ‘mirrors’ within these monsters.”     Slowly, Blood agreed with me. “Yes… yes, he is still a child at heart. Alright, I can do it. Let’s go.”     Without warning, Blood grabbed me with one of his claws. “Wait, wait, wait—”     Massive legs launched off Israfel’s back and we flew, or crashed, really, to the building I’d pointed out. Part of it had caved in with our entrance, but Blood jammed his free claw into the side of it, halting us from falling anywhere. Bricks joined the frozen world for a moment, only to fall back into time and stop mid-air, joining a newly frozen cloud of dust.     Then it happened. It all came out, luckily forcing my face mask down and halting after a second or so of travel. At least it isn’t running down my suit I suppose. “Please, put me down.”     “Right. Sorry.”     Climbing up a little, Blood gently set me on the rooftop, then got in position. My stomach still roiling, I sat down to steady myself and prepared to restart time.     “Are you ready?”     “On your mark.”     “Release!”     Color wasn’t even done returning to the world when the whole building shook. Not unlike his niece earlier, Blood launched like a bullet, destroying the room behind the wall he was on. Light beat him to Israfel, and just as I’d predicted, she’d turned to have her chest directly in line with beastly Blood.     Her eyes, blue now that I notice, caught sight of him right before he pierced her. The very last sight she would ever see.     Blood’s claw sank deep inside her, and as soon as he was shoulder deep, Blue Israfel’s eyes rolled back into her skull. Her legs caved in, and Blood jumped away. Before she could even hit the ground, her body fell apart like a burned log in a fire pit.     “Everypony, it’s just like it was before! The real body, mirror, or whatever is holding these things together is in the center of their chests!”     “That’s wonderful Diamond, but now that both of you are done—” Another beast, one of the more yellow, one-armed feminine varieties, was slapped into the building I’d been sitting on, crashing through the wall just beneath me. “I could use a hoof.”     I coughed. “Certainly.”           Fluttershy          Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why? Why is this a thing? Why can he just do that? It was never fair, but the number of city destroying levels of power this guy gets is way too many for the balance of a normal game. Not that anything about this is even remotely close to normal. Goddess, now I’m equating it to a game. What even.     Giant Matarael, who looked more like Persona’s idea of a female pony, rather than a one you might find on the street… discounting Applejack, but without all the ‘skin’ and stuff. Pictures of the real Matarael we saw weren’t this well-endowed, anyways.     Rather than struggle with her, this was more annoying than anything. Attacking her doesn’t so much as slow her down, but in this form, she’s not faster than me either. I can out run her, I can avoid her, but she’s always a step behind me. If I don’t keep up, I get crushed—I grabbed my tail and pulled it out of the shadow of a massive hoof coming down for it—but if I get too far ahead, she starts lunging and biting at me like Rainbow’s old friend.     Leaping away and running toward the fallen remains of Blue Israfel, I took note of my Mirror, then turned and waited. Just as she had been, since I’m not super certain these giants of his are even capable of complex thought right now, Matarael charged right in, not caring one way or another if this was a trap. Which it was.     “Now!”     The stomping gallop of the reflected beast charged out from under a stacked pile of rubble and leapt onto Matarael’s face. She staggered, losing her balance, then tripping on herself. My cue, I started my own run right after her chest. She squirmed for a moment, but then her massive kaleidoscopic eyes turned on me. Just before I could stab my fingers into her chest, she swept a hoof up at me. Quicker than I thought she could move, it slammed into my right shoulder and sent me across the burned area.     Ringing.     Ringing was all I could hear. My vision went blurry, it felt like my body disconnected from my head, and I couldn’t feel my limbs.        Black.    Nothingness.  “Fl…shy”  Huh?  “Flutter…”  My head was pounding. Is somepony talking to me?  “Fluttershy! Fluttershy, wake up!”      Light returned, though hazy and unfocused around the edges like I was looking through a vignette. Then I saw the hooves. My wings reacted before I realized what was going on, and I took to the air. just below me, A pair of hooves slammed into the ground, kicking up dust and debris where I’d just been.      “Ah, so close. You’ll have to try harder Matarael, you don’t want to end up like Israfel.” Persona announced from his seat.        Persona? Wherever I was, I’d landed right next to him. I moved to run away, but before I knew it, he’d grabbed one of my wings.      “No, no, my dear Target Lock, the battlefield is that way. I wouldn’t think you a coward, but your usual tactics won’t work here regardless. As is customary in games such as this…” unable to free myself from him, he slowly drew his hoof back and above his head like he was getting ready to throw a pitch. “No running from trainer battles!”      First his shoulder, then his upper leg, then his foreleg, muscles bulged in sequence. His grip left me, but gravity kept me plastered to him, until it didn’t. I’d never flown so fast in my life. Short scenes of Applejack fighting, red-black rushing by, streams of pink and blue, domes walls and flashes of violet in the distance. Finally, when the spinning stopped, I realized that my face and the wall of some building were about to get intimate with each other. Thankfully, my wings flared out. Instead of getting a mouthful of bricks, I swooped up and even backward.      I reset my position, stopped to a hover, and at last, took a breath.      “Good goddess.”      “You’re telling me! Fluttershy, turn left and come to me! I have your gun, and you’re going to need it!”      Rarity? I did turn left, and far down the row at the edge of the burned area, was a small, shiny black figure with a comically large gun she was holding like a staff. That rifle was made for me, and not somepony as short and stocky as her.      “Okay, I’m on my way over. What happened?” With urgency, I started to fly that direction, only to get short bursts out of my wings, like I’d already flown a marathon or two. Pain flared in my right shoulder with each flap, and for the first time since I learned about them, I wish I had a set of cables.      Of course, I can’t actually operate them without another foreleg, so it was a moot point.      “Well, you got slapped into next week. You landed next to Persona, and we thought he was simply going to kill you wight then and there, but he didn’t so much as lift a hoof. well, until you woke up again, that is. Are you alright?”      No.      “My shoulder hurts. It might be broken. I can’t tell.”      “I have some painkillers. If it’s desperate, we can have Scootaloo sent out here, but we’ll have to move further back into the city.”      Wincing and biting into my lip, I finally looked at it. The new suit that I had made was just drenched in blood. My blood. Maybe… this is desperate. Should I… should I back off? I have more to worry about than anypony else knows. Though, I can’t even be certain anything would’ve survived my beast form in the first place. As much as I… No, no, it’s not worth worrying about. Not right now, not at this stage. Still…      “Get Scootaloo. I think it’s worse than it looks. I’m bleeding, a lot.”      I flew up and away from the battlefield as I was leaving it, hoping Persona wouldn’t make another move to prevent that. Whether or not he knows it, he’s put himself between us and Manehattan Park, or the castle. If it really does come down to another appearance by the monsters he so wants to destroy, he’ll be ready for them. I think… he knows more about us than we initially thought.      He looked right at me, but simply smiled and didn’t move.      It sent a shiver down my spine. Almost like he was in my head, reading everything I thought. Desperate to look away, I took note of fake Redhoof fighting off Matarael for me, using what looked like Applejack’s powers.      She, on the other hoof, was still beating the crap out of Sahaquiel with whatever dark energy had enhanced her powers recently. Pure violence from the mare with too much more to lose than she realizes. She shouldn’t be here, but there’s no way we could do this without her.      Twilight was somehow holding her own against the masked giant, Sachiel. Defending with shields, attacking with magic beams, turning the poor bastard into something more like swiss cheese than a pony, but still missing the mark. Something was bothering me about that. He had lots of little holes in him, but they didn’t affect him much, or even slow him down at all. A lot like my slashes against Matarael, but to a greater extent. He doesn’t even bother dodging unless she aims for the chest, and when she does, he only moves so slightly out of the way. It only matters if he defends the one spot, and everywhere else, it just looks like he’s… leaking sand.      I almost wish Applejack hadn’t rushed in like she did. I wonder if he really would’ve explained the game at the start. Are the giants regenerating? Do we only have to beat them once, or is he even more powerful than we thought? Blue Israfel still hasn’t come back, so maybe not, but what if he’s just waiting for the right moment? I don’t like this.      Finally, I’d effectively exited the battlefield and was only a block away from Rarity. A blue flash caught my eye, and then Red Israfel bounded after it like a dog with a laser pointer. Geez. Of all the ponies here, she’s the least equipped to deal with a fight like this. Why hasn’t she asked for help yet? Of course, she’s also got the easiest time avoiding these guys, and she’s smarter about things now than when I first met her. Maybe she doesn’t need help. I’m the one who’s lost the most power, after all. Oh, Fluffy. Why did you have to go?       Pinkamena Diane Pie          You know, thinking about this seriously, I generally had no idea what I should be doing right now. Fight the monster, the weakness is in the chest, yeah, I got all that, but how am I, Pinkie Pie, the heroine Blur, supposed to deal a killing blow to this thing?     Said thing, A red eyed female giant which I could only assume was one of the Israfel twins, was doing as she had been since I lead her away, and chasing me, ever so slowly, trying her hardest to catch up, lunging after me when she did, then realizing I’d moved to sit somewhere else.     Now, that wasn’t to say I was being lazy or not trying, I was trying, really. However, much like our earlier fights, I’m really not too much of a fighter in fights like this. I’m not a stallion. I could never muster the kind of muscle mass even my dad has with all the juice and ‘extra-curriculars’ in the world. I mean, I’m stronger than Rarity, but Rarity was never a fighter in the first place. I’m taller than Rainbow, but Shy is like, at least a couple hands higher than me in her pony form. Maybe I could bulk up some more, to the point of approaching that enviable body Applejack has, but as far as pure power goes, I just don’t have it.     Thinking in my thinking pose, I noticed Red Israfel was on the move again, sighed, and went back to thinking. I suppose, I should probably be asking for help here, but in what way? I did have trump card, it’s true. I also only have four legs, and if I break one, I’m a dead mare waiting to get beat. I’ve used it before in a controlled way, but that backfired spectacularly with Sahaquiel.     Well, not true. It worked then, we just didn’t really know what we were dealing with, and we paid the price for it. Honestly, I feel like we know more about these versions of the kaiju than their original forms.     Seeing as Red Israfel was above me again, I made a slow trot out of the way, then casually strolled to the center of the battlefield. Who knows, maybe I just need an idea here? It’s not like I’m in trouble or anything. If I’d been this well composed when we first fought Sachiel, I probably wouldn’t have ever gotten hurt in the first place. Then again, maybe I’m just better at this now. Not the same kid anymore; finally growing into the suit I guess.     At the center now, I found a comfortable spot, then waived to Red Israfel to get her attention. She spotted me again, then started on her way over, as we’ve been going on about this loop for the last five minutes. Sigh. What to do, what to do.     I can’t in good conscience call the guy who killed him Red Hoof, even if he was his brother or whatever and taking up Goose’s place to help us out. So, Fake Red Hoof had tapped in for Fluttershy tapping out. She was bleeding pretty bad when I last saw her get smacked across the way, so she’s out of the picture for a little while, probably with Rarity, our resident support.     Since I know she was screwed without her powers, I’d bet on there being something like seven total minutes left to her world. Not that they’d be super useful right now without somepony like the Beast to do what she… no, wait, that was Fake Red Hoof cosplaying the Beast, who then stabbed Blue Israfel to death. His claw was the size of my whole body, and he dug his arm all the way in there.     The cores are deep this time, and other than with Shy’s powers, I don’t know how we’re gonna do this. They’re not as fast as grotesque Matarael was, thank the Goddess, but they have to be taken out the same way, and they’re bigger. Applejack can mash her Sahaquiel into paste, but without some kind of blade to pierce through, she really doesn’t have many options.     I looked over my shoulder, ignoring Red Israfel and focused on Twilight. Her fight was actually going pretty well, all things considered. Energy beams seem to cut through these things without much trouble, but for all the holes Sachiel has, he’s not really falling apart or slowing down.     Looking closer, pretending I had binoculars on me, I could see that Twilight wasn’t just throwing random bullshit out either. She was attacking joints, weak points on the body, places where the muscle was the least dense. Looks like she even shot an eye out, but that didn’t do much.     Hmm.     I wonder…     I looked back to Red Israfel as she was landing again with her slow-motion gallop. Now that I study her, yes, she’s moving, but her muscles aren’t exactly contracting like normal. The actual motion will happen at the same time the ‘muscles’ move like they’re pushing and pulling bones. Normally, you can tell when somepony’s about to do something because their body flexes in preparation for the movement they’re about to make. The muscles work, then motion happens.     Makes sense. They’re fake bodies made from dust. Sachiel was leaking dust everywhere he had holes. Like sand. True, Fake Red Hoof: Beast Edition™ had to dig deep in there, but what if it wasn’t as difficult as we think?     A theory in mind now, I moved to catch up with Rainbow, then paused to watch them to go by. The rabid Ramiel giant would get a cut on his face for every time he tried to snap at Rainbow with the help of her sword. Rainbow was fast, but not as fast as me, and Ramiel was actually going full tilt after her like he was on a mission. I would, like, have to move twice as fast from him as I would Red Israfel, who wouldn’t win any track awards at any school.     Weird to think that the fake ponies had different levels of athleticism.     That’s another odd point. Sachiel was leaking, but he did that the first time we fought him too. His body was kinda ‘liquid-y,’ so Applejack and Goose’s punches would ‘spray’ him everywhere when they landed. He’d also recover that spray pretty quick. Twilight was shooting a lot, but was she checking to see if old holes were closing up?     I saw that Israfel had caught up again and decided to head toward Twilight’s position. As I did, that’s when I noticed it. Something she wouldn’t notice because her eyes weren’t as fast as mine. Something nopony would notice, save maybe Rarity in her frozen world.     The holes were leaking, yes, but they were shrinking as they did.     Not acting like dirt or flesh either, since none of the holes had any signs that they’d been exposed to the high heat of Twilight’s attacks. Was he… doing that on purpose? Or is this part of Persona’s power, independent of whatever Sachiel was doing? Persona’s body acted, even if more like a zombie, correctly as far as anatomy goes. It wasn’t like Israfel or Sachiel, where it looked as if the muscles were just there for show.       They both moved as if… as if they were the same as they had been before, like liquids!     I ran over to fake Red Hoof, I had to know.     “Hey! What did it feel like earlier when you stabbed Blue Israfel?”     His ear twitched, and his eye drifted back till he noticed me, still fighting off Matarael.     “What did it feel like? What do you mean?”     “I mean, what did it feel like inside her body? Was it like, meaty, or more like digging through mulch, or even putting your hooves in jelly?”     Dropping Applejack’s powers and swapping to cosplay me, he joined me at my speed and pulled back from Matarael. Standing ‘still’ in the same way I do, he started thinking.     “Did you figure something out?”     I nodded a few times. “I think so. It’s not the same for all of them, but some of these guys don’t move right. I think we’re getting played, and these guys are easier to kill than we’re being led to believe.”     Fake Red Hoof frowned. “Hmm. To tell you the truth, I’m still not used to being in that best form, but it was strangely easy to pierce Blue Israfel. I put a lot more force into that than I needed to. The core felt more like flesh than whatever her exterior was made of.”     Good job Pinkie, you figured it out. I clapped my hooves. “Yep, I think I’ve got this. The bodies are fake. They’re not muscle and bone like Persona is, they act like they were as Kaiju. That’s why Sachiel is leaking, why you and Applejack aren’t making any progress on the more dense, fleshy Matarael and Sahaquiel, and Rainbow hasn’t made so much as a lasting cut on Ramiel. They might still have the mass to pretend like they’re real, but only yours and Applejack’s are going to need anything more than a well-placed stab to get through.”     I balled a hoof and pressed it into another. “Switch your cosplays, ‘cause I’m about to go get wet!”     “Uh…?”     Leaving him, I went to go prove my theory. He even said it himself. This was a boss rush. He can’t replicate their powers exactly, but he did the best he could to get them as accurate as they were.     Center of the burned area, Making sure that everypony could see me, I flagged down Red Israfel. Spotting me, like a dog after a laser pointer, she charged. Yep, even as she ran, the muscles didn’t act right, and looking closer, they jiggled a little with each bound, as if she were really made of muscle-shaped jelly.     Taking a couple of my knives out of my belt, I started my own charge toward her. Two more steps, and she’d hit that big piece of solid ground like Rarity’s Israfel did earlier. I waited at the edge of it. Now was the time for Trump Card. The fire pooled in both of my hind legs where I stood, and the moment I was in position…     Bum-bah!     Bum-bah!     The ground beneath me rose, and I launched! Spinning like a drill with my knives and hooves pressed together for a sharp point, I hit Israfel square in the chest, sliding through her like her body was really made of some kind of thick butter. Then, I hit the core. That was not jelly. It wasn’t fake either.     I flew out of Blue Israfel’s back between her shoulder blades, and felt my stomach turn. Not from the spinning, not from the strange feeling against my skin, but because of what I’d just done.     Princess Luna called him a necromancer.       And she was right.      Rainbow Dash          “Guys, they’re not even alive in there.”     Blur had found her way into my head as I was frantically avoiding getting chomped on by this crazy fucking monster at my hooves. I keep fucking cutting, but nothing ever seems to matter! It’s like I’m slicing through air, I don’t understand it! Not even alive—     “Pinkie, what are you talking about?”     Clack     Teeth smashed together behind my tail, and on instinct, I turned and swiped at the bastard. The snout, the eyes, the jaw, it didn’t matter. Every time I’d go through him, I’d look back and he’d be normal again. “Why! Won’t! You! Die!” Four slashes, reactions like I was hurting him, but nothing serious enough to slow him down.     “They’re corpses, inside. The eyes aren’t even working, they’re… they’re dead.”     Dead?        I put some more effort into my wings and put at least a little distance between the rabid giant and myself.     “Corpses?” Twilight asked, “I mean, sure, Luna called him a necromancer, but—”     “No, seriously, that’s right on the money. These are animated corpses inside. And the giants themselves; they’re fake. Sachiel, the Israfels, Ramiel, they’re all made of jelly or whatever, just like the first time we fought them. Did you notice that Sachiel is recovering everywhere you shot him? And Rainbow, nothing’s working, right? He’s not getting cut when you cut him?”     Jelly? I mean, yeah, Ramiel was all… liquidy… Leading him to a corner away from everypony else, I flew up and then hovered above him to the point where he couldn’t reach me. Below, he was circling, jumping and snapping at me like a shark you’d find in movies.     Something was weird about the way he moved, now that I stop and look. The teeth are solid for sure. But even his jaw didn’t look right. It kinda… wobbled.     Boss rush…     “Wait, wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me, that if I just dive in and aim for the center, I’ll be done with this bitch right then and there?”     “That’s what I did.”     That’s what—I turned my head, shocked, to see that another Israfel was down, and Pinkie had moved on to helping out our Red Hoof.     “You’re fucking kidding me. Did we get pranked?”     Twilight coughed. “You know, I thought it was odd that Sachiel would only defend himself if I aimed for his chest”     “It’s just like before, for the most part. Matarael and Sahaquiel are more fleshy and move right, but all the others I think are more like bluffs than real monsters. I can’t tell what Persona’s thinking, but if this is the game he wants us to play, then these two are the ones we really need to deal with.”     I sighed. I’ve been flying my ass off this whole time for no!     I gripped my sword in both hooves.     Goddess damned!     I dove.     Reason!     I didn’t even bother avoiding him. He was mid jump and I just dove straight into his mouth. Everything about this was a lie. It wasn’t even difficult. His body might as well have been made out of butter. I cut straight through all the fake muscle, and even some of his collar bones, which were a little bit more dense than the rest of him, probably to give him the weight of a real monster, and then found the core.     If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Persona dug him up yesterday just for this moment. Ramiel’s body was a rotting corpse. At his collar was the shine of a cracked mirror, and the rest of him was a limp, dead body, strung up like he was in the process of being crucified. He… or at least, what was left of him, made eye contact with me.     I didn’t quite understand it. In that split second, I was awash with emotions. He was in agony. Truly being eaten alive from the inside out, falling apart and rotting with every movement. That single glance from dead eyes wasn’t something a living Ramiel would ask for. This was a plea for death.     I didn’t hesitate and gave it to him.     I lunged my sword deep into the mirror. The whole thing shattered into little pieces and Ramiel’s dead eyes rolled up. What was left of his lips, as far as I could tell, mouthed a couple words.       “Thank you.”     I shivered. What… is happening, right now? That was him. I recognized at least what was left of his face. I knew him. He was a cruel, crazy bastard back when he was alive, and he would’ve done something just like this if he had Persona’s powers. He was a bad pony. He was sick and twisted and fucked up in the head in all the worst ways a pony could be.     And yet…       His body, or the fake one, really, started to disintegrate around me. In moments, even his corpse, had become dust and nothing. Hovering in midair, I felt lost. I did it, alone. I should be happy that he’s gone and there’s one less problem to worry about. I shouldn’t feel… like this.     How could you do that, to somepony? He was dead. When ponies die, they’re supposed to stay that way. They should… move on to whatever’s next. We have souls, don’t we? I recognized him. I knew him. Even as disfigured as he was, that was Ramiel. What did you do, Silicon? Are you ripping these… these ponies away from wherever they’re supposed to be to bring them back here?     You… you can’t know what you’re doing. You can’t. You’re a piece of shit. Worthless, pony-debris. I can’t imagine that even you would… not like this.     “Rainbow, if you’re done over there, can I get a hoof here?” Twilight called.     I shook my head. He doesn’t know. He can’t. I shouldn’t know. But even I can recognize how… how messed up this all is. It’s… more than going against nature, the… the very order of things is being screwed up here. Maybe… just like Ramiel, Silicon…     “Rainbow!? I mean it! Help! Please!”     I turned, snapped to attention, and flew after Twilight. I can think later. All of this has to be stopped first and foremost. If… if nothing else, but to save what’s left of that poor bastard. We know not what we do.      Twilight Sparkle          No, no, no! Wings, use the wings!     Just before Sachiel’s hoof came down on top of me, I remembered that I could, in fact, fly, and did just that. Despite all the time we’ve spent training, despite having them for ten years, or at least knowing I had them for ten years, it still didn’t feel natural to fly to me. My wings think before I do a lot of the time, which helps, but also doesn’t help in situations like this where I get panicked and stop thinking properly. If anything, that’s my biggest issue: I panic.     Taking off as best I could, I managed to jump away from Sachiel just in time to watch the Bloody Crow of Manehattan herself fly right past me with a big red sword, slicing the hoof clean off and toppling Sachiel. The big, muscly body came crashing down like a ton of bricks, falling in on himself and shaking the earth below. A wave of dust flew outward around him, followed by the thundering crash of his sheer mass.     “What are you waiting for!? Take the shot!”       Right. Letting the magic pool in my forehead, mentally placing my crosshairs right where I wanted to shoot, the very place that Sachiel had been protecting from me all this time, and charged. Seventy percent was my ‘limit’ right now, so that was what I’d planned to do. Wide enough for the size of a pony, bigger, more powerful than what I’d been doing before. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, from the earth you came, to the earth you return!     Like the sound of a camera flash, all that pooled energy was unleashed with a target in mind in a straight line, splitting the air wherever it went. I felt it make contact, burn straight through, and then pass on beyond. Like closing a valve, I stopped my fire and took a moment to breathe and see my target.     The hole went all the way through, just like it should. However, instead of disappearing, Sachiel’s leg was reforming and he was standing back up.     “What!? I thought you said—”     “I did say! He should be dead, you hit the right spot! What the hell—” Rainbow cut herself off mid sentence as a colossal hoof came rocketing through the air right at her. Flying up in a mass of black and red, she avoided it, but Sachiel had returned to standing, and was on the move again. I took to the air myself and flew my fastest to meet up with Rainbow.     “He’s been protecting that spot the whole time!”     She rolled her eyes, grabbed me, and took us both higher. Even without two real wings, she was the faster flier. “Yeah, I understand that! Maybe we’re missing something. I wasn’t even there for it, how did you deal with this guy the first time?”     The first time? I looked back at the monster and stared deep into that bone mask of his. A pony plague doctor, or the one spreading the plague, when we fought him the first time, his mirror… wasn’t in his chest, but in his most fortified part. Under the mask.     I sighed, scratched at my mane, and clicked my tongue. Of all the things that bothered me about my adventures into being a hero, this was the one that bothered me the most. “It uh… well, it was in his face. Pinkie cut a hole in the mask, and we found the mirror under that. I’d been nearly crushed to death by a rock, so I wasn’t really… apart of that either.”     “Well, that isn’t super helpful either. If you made a wider beam than the one you just did, would it still be enough to melt him?”     Wider? But, that would require more power. If I did, I risk breaking my horn again, and if I’m useless for the rest of the fight, what’s the point? “I’m not sure about that. That was my limit right now. I can do it again, but anything more could have… consequences.”     Rainbow huffed, then took us up and out of Sachiel’s range. There, she let me go and took her sword in two hooves.     “Alright, I’ve got an idea, but I need to figure something out first. Have you shot the mask?”     I had, and it didn’t really do anything. No dents, no scars, just steam. The thing covers his whole head, so it’s not like Rainbow could take advantage of his ‘jellyness’ and just dive right into the main body and get him from the inside.     “I did, but it didn’t exactly work.”     She sighed. “Figures. I’m going to make a mark for you. When I give you the signal, shoot the center with everything you’ve got. It doesn’t have to be wide, but it needs to be strong. Penetrating. Like you’re a tank with AP rounds, ya know?”     I scratched at my neck underneath my helmet. An AP round… so, something more like a projectile, then followed by the rest of the beam. A way to cut a hole in, then make it explode     I looked down at the ground, searching for any kind of metal. Something shiny caught my eye, and I think it was the remains of a melted lamp post. I nodded.     “Okay, I can do it.”     Rainbow tilted her head and raised an ear. “Alright. Let’s go!”     And so we split. Rainbow took Sachiel’s attention, and I dove my pole. It was away from Sachiel enough that he wouldn’t destroy it in the time it took me to get there, even if Rainbow accidentally led him my way.     The wind ruffled my body as I shot down like a bullet, the tops of buildings and the hard, ruined earth below coming at me faster and faster. My wings flared out, my cape rustled in the wind and I swooped just in time to avoid becoming a splatter slash shishkebab on my target.     My eyes weren’t perfect, but I at least saw the general shape of this lamp post form above, not really thinking how big it would be when I got here. It wasn’t small. It was probably about two and a half meters long, with the tip having been melted to a point in the recent fires. Luckily for me, however, that melted tip was hardened steel again, and would serve perfectly as a bullet to destroy Sachiel. Now, however, there was a new problem. I could pick up the pole with my magic, but I couldn’t launch it.     I’d need to really form a ‘gun’ mechanism with magic If I actually wanted to send this thing flying with any accuracy, and I didn’t have the capacity, nor the practice to do that on the fly. But I could levitate it. And I could fly. It wouldn’t be very fast, but with enough momentum built up, this could probably pierce Sachiel enough for me to shoot through, if not do the job on its own.     Why work harder when you can work smarter? I could get the momentum I needed if I just dropped it from above. Taking off with a running start, I leapt into the air with my heavy payload and started to spiral up into the sky. I know the math, I know the physics, I can do this efficiently and make the plan work. All I have to do is think and work out the solution.     “I’m about to make the last cut! Are you ready!?”     After reaching about three fourths the height I wanted to, I turned to see what dash had done. She’d cut a triangle into Sachiel’s face mask. It wasn’t super deep, but if she just cut an ‘X’ in the center, even a bullet could penetrate all the way in. This would do even more. She’d made the first part of the cross and was coming around for the second. With that, I wouldn’t need my original estimate.     “Ready when you are!”     “Go!”     I dove, and Dash moved to make her last cut. The mask slashed, she backed away as Sachiel staggered where he stood. Chances are, he didn’t even see me coming.     Just like before, I dove in as fast as I could, the wind shaking me all around as I got closer and closer to my target. Once I was only a few body lengths away, I pushed my makeshift spear and let go. Wing flared, I swooped up and watched what happened next.     I’d done it right, hitting the spear right in the cross section of the mask Rainbow had marked. The entirety of the triangle caved in, and the spear shot straight through and right out the other side. What was left was a through hole to a cavity, where I could see him.     This… power, this magic, whatever it was that is Persona’s ability, made me just as nauseous as Applejack when she was covered in that dark, dissonant magic. It was sickening. It was unholy, it was miserable, and it was disgusting. Against the natural order of things, against life, against what should be.     I made eye contact with him. What was left of the poor, sorry thing he’d become. Rotting away, emitting a dark fluid, filled with maggots. How… How could he? How could he do this to ponies? To… to ponies he knew. Even if they were sick, demented ponies, they were still ponies.  How utterly and unfathomably disgusting.     “Twilight?” Dash called.     I heaved, but kept it down. Sachiel fell to dust, and in a moment, there was nothing left of him. The poor bastard. How could he do this to you?     “Twilight!”     Pulled out of my thoughts, Rainbow appeared at my side.     “Are you okay?”     Swallowing, I nodded. “I… I am. R-rainbow, this is…”     “I know. We’ve gotta…” she lost her words. I’m sure she’d already seen it once, the way she reacted. She shook her head. “We’ve gotta put an end to this. There’s no way he knows. No way. Just… no way.”     A mutual understanding had been reached. Logically, I wouldn’t be able to describe the utter horror of what this was. It was… against logic. A feeling deep within me that came from somewhere I couldn’t see, hear, or touch. But it was knowledge, and it was true. This was the horror of the monster. If I had been born into this world to do any one thing, it was to put an end to this.     I surveyed the field and noticed that Persona hadn’t so much as moved. A slight smile on his face, sitting happily, entertained by the spectacle of his pawns going down one by one as we slowly regrouped.     “There’s more to the game.” I stated.     “More to the game?” Rainbow asked.     “More to the game. This, dealing with them, setting the natural order straight… it’s only the first phase. Once we finish… then we’ll enter the next phase.”     I turned my head toward the sounds of battle to see Blur and Discount Red Hoof fighting with Matarael, the wild giant. “Let’s move.”            “Hey, are you guys alright?” I called from the other side of the burned area.      Pinkie was the first to respond. “Kinda? My theory was right, which is great, but also not great since we’re gonna need a way to cut this bitch open. Between the two of us, it’s basically just two of me, meaning we’ve got… nothing here.”      “Yes. That. Is Fluttershy okay? It would be nice to have her right about now.” Our Red Hoof added.        As far as I could tell, at least as Dash and I were closing the distance, they’d basically cooked some parts of Matarael, launching a flurry of blows at the joints to slow her, but not really doing enough damage to break through or even hurt her.      Rarity chimed in, “We’re working on it. She was in worse shape than we initially thought, so it was difficult to get to a safe distance with her on my back. Celestia is sending Scootaloo to our location now.”      “Well, I mean, I could take a stab at it. You guys got a good idea where the core is?” Rainbow asked.      “We believe,” Our Red Hoof had aligned a metal spike, much like the lamp post I used to end Sachiel, for Matarael to stomp on, only for her to completely crush it under her hoof. “The core is in her chest under the collar like the other ones thus far. However, she’s very tough. As you’ve just seen, she doesn’t take to being stabbed all that well. Even when I line it up to go through the softer parts of her, it doesn’t exactly work.”      Well, at least they haven’t just been going after her without doing research. If I were to add heat to something like that, maybe…      “Whatever, I’ll just stab the bitch through! Back off, I got this!”      “Rainbow, wait!”      Naturally, she didn’t wait. Instead, she took off, blasting into the sky with bigger blood wings than I’ve ever seen from her and cutting a hole in the air. Thinking quickly, I locked onto her, did some math, and took a guess as to where she would make contact. If I could get her to hit something into Matarael rather than jam a sword into her, it’d probably go better for everypony.      This used to be a city block, so streetlamps were plenty, and very, very melted still. I spotted one that was further away than I wanted it to be, then moved quickly to try and grab it.      “Rainbow, hang out for a minute I got an idea!”      I looked up, and luckily, she hadn’t reached the top of her arc yet.      “An idea? What?”      “Pinkie, Mister Blood, go lead Matarael around for a bit, and when I give the signal, come back toward me.”      “You got it, miss Centurio Regine!” Pinkie called. Trails of red and blue raced around Matarael, then raced off, away from me. Matarael, trying to bite and stomp at them, followed quickly behind.      “So, what’s the plan, Twi?” Rainbow asked.         “Because Matarael seems to act as if she’s made out of flesh and bone, unlike the others, heat should work pretty well against her. So, I’m going to take this lamppost here and turn it into a hot, burning spike. I’m not strong enough to throw it myself though, so you’ll have to serve as the hammer.”      “Huh. That does sound better than my idea. Let’s do that!”      And with her in place, I got to spinning. Once upon a time, I read a book with mother on forging techniques. Heating metal to the point where it’s malleable but not changing states is an art unto itself. Too hot and you have to cool it, shape it, too cold and you can’t do anything with it. Heating, cooling, hardening, shaping, it’s all done with a level of craftsmanship that I always found fascinating. I wasn’t about to make a work of art here, but I at least knew the basics of how to do this in magic.      However, I’m not the sun incarnate, so I have to take the roundabout way to get this to work. Flying to the approximate height of where I believed Matarael’s body to be, I turned my rotations up a notch. Air and friction were all I had to work with, and I needed this to be hot enough to melt bone, but not just splatter into mush when it came into contact with either Rainbow’s blood, or Matarael’s chest.      As soon as the pole was red hot, I applied pressure to the tip and elongated it. Thin and sharp, still spinning to make something of a bullet. The rotation too, would help it penetrate, but I wasn’t sure how deep this would go, even with all of the forces at play.      Reversing my rotation and slowing down, I cooled the pole a bit before I noticed Matarael coming back my way.      “So, we kinda ran out of room. Hope you’re ready, cause we’re bringing her to you!”      Well, without Rarity, I can’t really take any extra time, so this is what we’re doing I guess. How many steps? At this gait, with maybe… twenty meters between each gallop, going about that many miles per hour, with Rainbow flying about this fast, we’ll need… I moved a couple paces to the right, positioned the stake above my head, and counted.     Crash!      One.      CRASH!      Two.     CRASH!      “Rainbow, Now!”      I could hear her before I could see her. Like a jet engine, she broke through the sky as she dove, cracking the air and letting loose a red shockwave of light and sound. I turned my head just in time to see the approaching red cone of death flying right at me, raised the spike to adjust for her position, and covered my ears.     POW!      Like a cannon shell from the largest battleship in the world, another shockwave slammed straight into my spike and ripped it from my magic. Wind rattled my body, my wings failed me, and I started to fall. Before I knew it, our Red Hoof had caught me, casually landing back on the ground, shielding me from the blowback with his cape.      The destruction was immense. Instead of just spearing Matarael, it pierced her collar to tail, and kept going into the ground. Shaking the earth, creating a crater where it landed and digging deep into the ground, destroying the burned area even more and making a notable change in its landscape.      Matarael, fell flat on her face. Her chest had a big hole in it with the skin and muscle twisted where it could be seen to match the rotation of the spike. No movement, no nothing.      “What in the hell was that?!” Rarity called.      “Look, I’ll be honest, I didn’t really think too much about how fast I was gonna go here, so I just went for it. I may or may not have used trump card, and I may or may not have broken the sound barrier. Twice.”      Rainbow had come to stand with the rest of us, and, despite my shock with the initial damage we’d done, I was shocked even more to see her with some kind of glowing red aura, just like Applejack.      “We’re headed back, is she dead?” Rarity asked.      Turning my attention again, I looked at Matarael. She hadn’t moved since she fell. Her eyes were blank, but she wasn’t disappearing. Did we? Is she really dead?      “Pretty sure we just gave her a new asshole, even if she ain’t dead, she ain’t getting’ back up.” Rainbow announced.      “I-I mean, sure, that’s a way to put it. B-but, did you not just cause millions and millions of bits in damages with that sonic boom? Not that we don’t need that kind of force right now, but I think you overdid it.” Fluttershy added.     “Well. Probably, but we need drastic measures, right? You’re the only one who could deal with something like Matarael, and since we didn’t have you, I did what I could. Not that I thought I could do this.”     “Well, you’re kinda glowing like Applejack does right now, so…” Pinkie pointed out.     I guess Rainbow hadn’t realized that herself just yet. “I’m what—” She checked herself over, making note of how the sort of ‘outline’ was even moving with her individual feathers. “Yo, this is kinda cool! I… don’t know how I’m doing it exactly, but I feel really powerful right now. Does anypony know what Applejack’s doing? Hey, can you hear us!?”     “Ah can hear ya, alright!”     Before anypony realized what was happening, a shadow had formed above us.      “If you’re all souped up or whatever, cut a hole in that bastard on the way down!”      On the way down?     Then I noticed the shadow. “Holy crap! Scatter!”      Our Red Hoof grabbed me and took off to avoid the incoming giant’s body, Pinkie followed us, but Rainbow had decided to stay put.      “I don’t think I can make a hole, but if you want this guy in halves, I think I got you covered!”        The red aura and all the magic I could feel flowing off her gathered in a pool that swallowed her sword. Red, red, red, the weapon grew to suit Rainbow’s needs. Wings, bigger and thinner than I had ever seen them formed against the black feathers of the crow, and just as the shadow blotted out the sun for her, she launched.      Dust followed the wind in a cloud as Dash took to the sky, leaving a trail of red black and rainbow following her like an after image. At once, she started to spin vertically, becoming a glowing red saw blade that effortlessly passed through Sahaquiel. Her wings spread out once more in the air, casting a red shadow over the two pieces of the giant as he fell apart.      “Comin’ at yer six, lemme borrow that thing!”      “You what!?” Before Rainbow could even react to it, a glowing ball of orange black rage swiped the sword out of her hooves as high in the air as she was, then used Rainbow’s body as a springboard to quickly shift direction and shoot straight down.      The top half of Sahaquiel twitched and struggled like a dying creature that’d been flattened on the road but caught sight of her just before impact. Even in the giant’s eyes with his broken jaw and deepened madness, I saw fear.      Applejack landed right on the monster’s chest, sword pointed down, and with a similar force to Rainbow’s sonic boom from earlier. More power than anything before, more destruction than anything before, an explosion shook the world. Like a bomb had gone off, pieces of road were sent flying, the sky was covered in dusty gray, and again, we were thrown up into the air.      When I finally regained my wings and helped catch Pinkie, I saw the aftermath from the eye of the storm. She didn’t just stab him through, she’d caved in his entire chest cavity. Giants, monsters, with power like hers, they might as well have been nothing. Smashed to bits, flattened like wet clay under a hydraulic press, if there was anything left of Sahaquiel before, there wasn’t any more.      After the dust settled, Applejack ripped the sword out of the slowly fading giant’s carcass and screamed in triumph to the sky.      Applejack          Ah’d done it. The monster was slain, my husband avenged, even if it was small, this was the victory Ah’d needed. Ah don’t know when Ah started ta yell, but somethin’ primal came up outta me and flew at the sky, hot and angry.     “Ah did it, Goose! Ah did it! He’s dead! The same sword, the same wound, an eye for an eye, a life… for a life…”     Ah fell ta my knees. How… exhaustin’, all this is. All the energy Ah had when my blood started ta boil earlier was fallin’ ta a simmer. Something deep, achin’ and heavy fell away from me, leakin’ out just under my eyes. Where were his parents? Who let him end up like that? Why did that… that boy become the monster that killed my husband?     Holdin’ the end of the sword with one hoof, Ah felt the other creep over my belly. Even if Ah have ta turn the world upside down, y’all will never end up like him. Nopony should ever end up like him.     “Goodness, what a maelstrom. Marevelous? Are you alright?” Ah wiped my eyes again at the sound of Rarity’s voice and stood up.     “Ah’m fine. This ain’t over yet.” Fluttershy was behind her, and slowly but surely, everypony else found their way back here as the dust cloud flew further out and things started ta settle.     “What’s left? Did we get ‘em all?” Ah asked.     Before any of my ponies could answer though, the spectator did. “I believe the answer to your question may be closer than you think.”     Ears turned up, eyes scanning everywhere, Ah suddenly noticed how very quiet everything was. Why hasn’t the dust all settled yet? It’d formed something like a ring of fog around us. The material this is shouldn’t act like this. It’s too heavy to just sit in the air like that, what’s happening?     Movement out of the corner of my eye.     “Scatter!”     A screaming monster parted the fog, slamming down on the ruined earth where I’d just been. Luckily, nopony was caught in the attack, but now, we had ta see it all over again. That thing. The nightmare. An unsightly beast.     A mishmash of leathery parts, now properly lit in the bright noonday sun. pale, dead skin with an oily look in some places, and a dry look in others. One head of an ancient equun, half covered in living skin, half simply left ta muscle and bone, missing an eye and looking wildly all over the place. Another head, rows and rows of eyes and eyes and eyes, all staring every which way lookin’ seemingly everywhere and nowhere all at once.     Two forelegs where they should be, another pair in places they shouldn’t, kickin’ and twitchin’ like a thing on its dyin’ breath. Leathery wings like that of a bat pony with beatin’ veins showin’ in the shinin’ sun, a tail long and thick that twitched every which way at every noise, lookin’ for somethin’. Matarael was alive again.     “Don’t you remember? Matarael has two phases.” Persona snickered from his seat up above.     Didn’t have time ta retort. He’d remade her just as she was before, if not a little faster. Light built up in the center of its head of eyes, and aimed itself directly at Uncle Blood.     “Centurio, shields up! Target, Crow, Blur, ta me!”     A violet barrier encased Twilight, Rarity and Uncle Blood an instant before the beam struck him, then the rest of us launched. We’d practiced this before. We knew what ta do and how ta deal with it this time.     Since Ah still had the sword, Ah Launched after the first problem, the head of eyes. A quick look ta Rainbow, then Pinkie had them ready ta follow through once Ah was done with my part, and Shy had already took ta the sky ta imbibe in blood.     Holding the sword back hooved like a thief’s dagger, Ah came down with all the force Ah could muster and slashed at the neck of the eyed head. It passed through easily, and as soon as Ah saw it start ta slide off like a broken egg, Ah tossed the sword in the air.     Rainbow, already in position, took hold of her weapon as she passed over me. Twisting herself into a spinning saw blade, she extended the sword with her blood and slashed at Matarael’s wings. By the time the eyed head hit the ground, Matarael’s wings were clipped.     The monster tried to back away, but by then, Pinkie had already taken up the blade. The blue glow of her trump card radiated off her hooves, and one by one, she zipped past and cut down each of Matarael’s legs. The beast tried to escape, but with each movement, another limb fell off.     A thrashing torso, missing pieces and oozing in places, was then covered by a growing shadow. The singular, semi-sentient eye focused on the new darkness, before it landed right on top of it.     The real Beast stomped her foot down on top of the monster’s head. Still attached, still not completely crushed, the Beast roared, and furiously stomped the monster’s remaining head again and again and again.     Pinkie returned ta give me Rainbow’s sword, and Ah moved ta the sad creature’s chest. Finally splattered with enough gore ta be satisfied, the Beast stopped her assault and remembered what she was really here ta do.     She jammed her claw deep into the monster’s chest. When it didn’t immediately start ta disappear and squirmed a little more in its sad, limbless state, she spread her fingers open.     There, in the new hole, was somethin’ Ah wish Ah never saw. A pony in tatters, pieces of what were once a mare assembled loosely around a skeleton, half awake, half conscious, with living eyes staring right at me. If the face of the contorted monster was disgustin’, this was an abomination. An affront ta the Goddess. Somethin’ sick, somethin’ twisted, somethin’ that goes against the very nature of the world.     “Ya poor bastard. What has Silicon done?”     Ta my surprise, the corpse answered me. “M-mistake… not know… what do…”     Ah paused. She’s alive in there?     A new sort of awareness struck the zombie, and she tried ta get closer ta me. The sad little dried muscles on her shoulders doing what they could ta move. “Your power… c-can do… can save…” Her shoulder ripped. It wasn’t strong enough to hold itself together anymore and fell back into the monster’s chest.     The corpse staggered but started to move her head again to look at me. To see my eyes. “S-save… Silicon… not know… what do…”     Without really realizing it, Ah thought Ah understood. Trump card… no, the new power, flooded my free hoof. Ah didn’t attack, Ah didn’t try ta punch what was left of her, Ah simply put my hoof on her chest against the broken mirror, and pressed down.     What remained of her body started ta burn with the same energy. Slowly, the rot burned away from her. The pieces of the mirror turned to dust and nothingness, and all at once, the corpse was gone. In its place, however, was the image of a mare. A shade of somepony Ah’d recognized from a picture before.     Green and red mane, orange eyes, a pastel red coat. The whole mare, preserved like an image lost to time. “Please, save Silicon. Save the rest of us. He still has a grip on them. Only your power, the power you’ve been blessed with, can set them free.”     And just like that, she vanished. Like a shadow exposed to light, gone like she was never there in the first place. All around me, the monster’s body started to dissolve inta dust, and Ah understood what’d just happened here.     It was just like he said. His powers can trap souls. And ours… can set them free.       Blood Orange          The dust-fog, as it were, had been released by whatever was holding it in place as all of it fell around us almost instantaneously. Heavy movement came from further away, and now, Silicon was approaching us. Walking on two legs, his head so high in the air, you’d have to squint in the noonday sun to see his face. He was clapping for us.     “Excellent, excellent, excellent. It should be expected from you by now, but as always, you have gone above and beyond, heroes.”     He finally came down from that high stance and crash landed his forelegs just a little ways away from us, shaking the earth before us. Then, I noticed the dust start to swirl.     “However, I must admit, there are parts of this game I’d never intended to inform you about, even if you had listened to the rules earlier.”     Faster and faster the dust swirled in little pools, then larger clouds, until shapes started to form within them.     Applejack stepped forward. “Ah had a feelin’ it wouldn’t’ve mattered either way. But Ah also think ya may just be surprised at what ya find here.”     Silicon’s brows lowered. At this point, I figured Applejack knew what he was up to. I didn’t have to wait long to figure it out myself though. One by one, the shapes in the dust became the fully formed giants they were before, all six of them standing like statues surrounding us, this time with Silicon. However, just as it looked like we had six more enemies to fight, one, a female giant, fell over into a pile of sand.     Visibly frowning, Silicon turned his head. “So I am. It matters not, regardless. I’ll simply have to take another life to replace the one I’ve lost. Your boss rush has been set to ‘endless mode’ and I’ll be participating from this wave onward. With each of my kaiju you slay, I’ll simply make another to take their place. You’ll fight until you die, then rise again in my name to continue the work your forebearers started.”     Rainbow shook her head. “Man. You just… have no clue, do you? And here I thought I was guilty of torturing ponies to death. How did you end up like this?”     In a way, there was a… sorrow in Rainbow’s voice that I couldn’t quite place. A girl as young as she was never struck me as the type to act like somepony’s mother, but in that moment, you could hear it. The disappointment of a mare who’s seeing her child lost in his own delusions.     Unsurprisingly, this set Silicon off. “What right do you have to criticize me!? You, nothing but a traitor and a liar, somepony who breaks her contracts at the earliest opportunity! I did not start this fight! She was the one who took it all away from me!”     “Don’t give me that!” Applejack shouted back. She stepped forward again, and Silicon stepped back. “Ya had a choice! This ain’t somethin’ anypony is forced inta, and certainly not somepony with all the means in the world y’all have! You make yer own damn decisions! It didn’t have ta be this way!”     And that was her anger. The mother’s reprimand. Scolding her foolish child.     “It did!” Silicon slammed a hoof into the ground. “It had to end like this! It will not end like this! You will die here, and then I will move on to my next target! I’ll hear no more of this rabble! Begin!”     I don’t know what brought it on, but somehow, both Applejack and Rainbow had found the root. Something deeply traumatic that even Silicon recognized that was driving him to the actions he took. Maybe he was beyond saving in this moment, but if we can somehow subdue him…     “Split up! Uncle with me, Diamond go with Blur. The rest of y’all have yer targets, take ‘em out, but don’t finish ‘em! Ah can free ‘em from Silicon, just call fer me once ya’ve made the hole!”     And so, the fight began once more. Ponies split up, grabbing the attention of one or two Kaiju, and Applejack and I went directly after Silicon.     “You, you, you! Every time something goes awry, it’s always you in the way! Why didn’t the real Red Hoof kill you!? Why are you fighting in his image!? Why did you disappear!?”     Moving with speed he didn’t have before, Persona scrambled after me, trying to swat me like a fly he’d never been able to reach.     “Well, that confirms my theory.”Applejack noted. With all of her power, it almost felt like we were toying with Persona at this point. Thrashing about in a tantrum, trying his hardest to kill us, all to no avail.     “What theory?” I asked.     “There’s a piece of this we don’t know about, and Ah think Ah’ve got a good idea what it is. What made him like this, anyways. All the same, Ah’ve got a plan. Next time he tries ta stomp us, come touch my hoof. Because yer powers are what they are, Ah think Ah can let ya borrow mine, even if Ah go outside of yer range.”     “You can? Where did you ever get an idea like that?”     “Well, it just came ta me a little while ago. The pieces are all in place now, we can end this. However, Ah’m the only one who knows how ta perform the trick. Ah’m… not sure Ah could explain it ta anypony so long as Ah live, though. Ah need ya ta keep him busy while Ah go exorcise the rest of these guys. Once we’re done, we should all be ready ta come back and finish him together.”     Persona came close to smashing me, but I was ready for his hoof to come down. I backed off just enough to avoid it, then let Applejack’s powers flood my hooves. I jumped and slammed right into the joint just above Silicon’s hoof. It snapped, breaking sideways and forcing Persona off balance. To push him over the edge, Applejack launched after his head, then slammed with all of her orange glowing might right into his left temple. As the giant toppled, I doubled back to meet up with her.     “Here. If ya somehow find a way inside and see his real body, just… do what ya need ta. If ya can’t though, just hold out long enough fer us ta get done and Ah’ll put him ta rest.”     She held out her hoof to me, and carefully, I took it.     A well of energy suddenly flowed from one hoof to the other and filled me like a burning torrent. Crawling through my veins, finding every nook and cranny inside me and setting it ablaze, it was like getting too close to a fire while covered in gasoline. It was going to consume me. I was going to die right here and fail her in a single moment.     I have a job to do, I cannot fail!     And all at once, it was calm. Every inch of my skin was tingling, but the burning sensation had died away. Now it was… raw power. Something special, something… right. I’d felt this power before, but I couldn’t think of where.     “Do ya have it?” she asked.     I took a breath and nodded. It felt like I was breathing fire. “I do. Go. Do what it is you’re here to do. And I’ll play my part.”     And with that, Applejack left to help her friends. To help those fallen ponies that Silicon had stolen from the rest they deserved and the sentence they were meant to serve. The truth of it all, something unseen, right and just within this corrupted world.     “You! Every time, it’s always you! Why do you get in my way!? What makes you able to stand against me!? Why won’t you die!?”     The dust swirled around Silicon, shrouding him in a cloud of sandy fog. He was changing. Adapting to meet this new challenge in front of him. Whatever came next would be the most strength silicon could muster, and I had to hold him at bay regardless.     “I need more! You shall not, you will not out class me! You, who were nothing before I plucked you out of that asylum, you who were a phantom of a pony, you who were a shell of a stallion! You are incapable! You are not worthy of that cape!”     The dust had yet to clear before Persona flew at me. He’d shrunk himself down a considerable amount, now to something closer to the size of Celestia herself, or Applejack when she was consumed by her anguish. In a way, Silicon now resembled his father more than he ever had. Finally, I understood what Applejack and Rainbow had caught onto.     I didn’t bother trying to dodge or avoid him, that would’ve been out of my pay grade. Instead, I needed to be the opposite of what he accused me of, be worthy of the cape. Power overflowed my hooves as I crossed them over my torso to block his assault. A wall of red-orange light shielded me from the blow, but not without cracking like glass under stress.     “You think that this can stop me!? You think that some sham lightshow, some pretense that you have any right to power is enough to overcome me!?”     Silicon pulled his other massive hoof back and slammed it against my magic wall. This time, it did shatter, but I was prepared for that. I ducked as the momentum of his attack pushed him forward, and curled my hoof and bent my knees. A look of surprise caught his face like my hoof caught his belly. Launching upward with a hard right to the stomach, I stopped Silicon in his tracks. Next, while he was stunned, I took my left and slammed it right into his temple, sending him spiraling off into the remains of a block across the way.     I coiled my hind legs to launch, but then, it happened. In my side, something cracked. Stopped where I stood, I felt warm ooze flow up and out my mouth. Shivering, I wiped at my lips. This wasn’t the right red to match the suit. I coughed a few times, and once my breath had settled again, I knew what this would cost me.     Everything about this is above my pay grade. I was always the pretender, and by some string of fate, I now have to play the part just like the real thing would. My body was never ready to handle power like this as it is, and now I’ve been given the tools for the task at hoof. If the price must be paid, then I will be the one to pay it.     I gritted my teeth, and then launched after Persona. The hulking mass of stallion had already gotten back up and was beginning to reform what I’d destroyed of his head, when I was on him again.     “It was never about rights! This world owes you nothing, and you owe everything to it! Whether it spits in your face or kisses the ground you walk, it was always about how you behave within it!”     Thinking quickly, I went after the exposed part of his real head underneath the hole, but Silicon thought of that first. He parried my hoof and gave me a shoulder to the chest for it. He grabbed me by the head and slammed me into the ground.     Crack     More blood, more coughing.     “The world owes me everything! The weak are trampled under the strong, the powerless serve the powerful! Your station is your lot and you’re given nothing what you’re destined for! Choice!? Will!? The world you live in offers no such comforts!”     Before he could bash my head in completely, I twisted upward and wrapped my hind legs around his foreleg and pulled. Silicon screamed in agony as his shoulder started to rip apart. I let the power flood my hind leg even further and kicked with all my might at his joint. In an instant, the shoulder gave way and I was free of his grasp. I tossed the sad limb away, stood up, and wiped more blood off my face, though, not all of it was mine this time.     “True, much of the world is broken and prone to evil. Ponies like us were never meant to live easy lives. But it is in those moments where we find joy that life finally shows its true colors! Were you not so obsessed with your vengeance and lost to your delusions, you’d be able to see this yourself!”     Bleeding and dazed, the real shoulder in the center of his fake body just as torn and bloody as the outer layer, Silicon slowly rose to standing. The part of his head I’d blown off still wasn’t reforming, and neither was the shoulder.     I was talking, sure, but I wasn’t in much better shape. The more of this power I use, the more it destroys my body. Something I’m standing on is very broken, and all the magic and adrenaline inside me is preventing me from feeling it.     “There are no delusions in my world! Logic and reason are my guides, you will not preach to me you, homicidal incompetent!”      Screaming at the top of his lungs, Silicon charged at me, leaping in the air with those massive legs of his, coming at me like a musclebound monster. I couldn’t stand here and take a hit, otherwise, my already shattered leg would crumble and I’d be done completely. Even if I have to break every bone in my body, I will not lose to you!     Mirroring him, I used my good hind leg to launch right at him and we clashed in the air. Silicon threw out his foreleg, and I met it with mine. I could feel the bones inside cracking and threatening to shatter, but they held out just long enough for my other foreleg to slam his elbow.     From a rage filled roar to a hideous shriek, Silicon’s leg bent inwards and tore at the joint, revealing a split foreleg beneath the body. Taking hold of the broken appendage, I swung Silicon around me and threw him into the ground below. He landed on top of a sharpened lamp post, spearing him in the side, but not actually stabbing his main body.     Silicon tried to escape as he saw me coming, but his power didn’t work fast enough. With all the power I could gather in my good hind leg, I came down and dropped my hoof on his hips. Dust flew out in a crater all around, and the lower half of Silicon’s body was severed.     I tried to stand back up myself, but as I did, my own hind leg snapped in half. I could feel my senses fading. The numbness was all round, slowly growing colder and threatening to take my consciousness away from me.     I looked around, kneeling on Silicon’s body to see how the others were doing. Of the five, they’d only managed to take down three. If I end this now, if I kill Silicon here, the battle will be won and they will be safe. This city will be safe. Her foals will have a future. And all of this would finally come to an end.     I tried to crawl to Silicon’s torso, but my left foreleg snapped as I did. I barely even felt it. Barely noticed it. I was still alive to do one thing, and this was it.     “Wh-why…? How could this have happened? Y-you… you can’t be… B-blood Orange. W-who are you?”     I found Silicon’s eyes and stared deep into them. If I did nothing, he’d just recover, and I’d still be broken. Even still, all I saw in there was a boy who was afraid. A pony who was dealt a bad hoof early in life, and hateful, sad, and twisted as he grew up. Perhaps, it should’ve been Goose here to do this. Two boys of similar age who lost their mothers in tragic accidents at an early age… He could’ve ended up just like Silicon. But instead, he found her, and became somepony he wanted, was meant to be. A hero.     That is… why we pretend, isn’t it? To become something we want, to become something we should, a pony to aspire to be that we can reach in the fullness of ourselves. Oh, Silicon, you sad, sad creature. How could you do this to yourself?     “I… am Red Hoof!”     In my last hoof, I gathered all the power Applejack had given me and brought it down like a hammer through Silicon’s chest. Red-orange light splashed through him and across the earth below like a wave threatening to consume the world. The ground shook, the air trembled, and all at once, all the other giants froze in place.     Slowly, Silicon’s body, real and fake, started to fade into dust. He gasped once and said, “Where… did I go wrong?” before his head fell to ash as well.     As much as I tried, I couldn’t sustain myself anymore. Just like I’d destroyed Silicon’s body, my own body was obliterated in the process. There was no right foreleg anymore. It’d gone with him, the payment for the power. Not that I could feel it, anyways.     As painful as it should’ve been, as horrible as it might’ve been, I felt very pleasant, laying there as a torso myself. The encroaching darkness was soft and comforting. These blue skies would be the last I’d see of them. The wonderful noonday sun. Or… was it the sun? What was it I was seeing?     It kept getting closer and closer, brighter and brighter, until finally, I couldn’t see anything but white.     A moment passed.     Lost, floating in this strange space, It was familiar to me. I’d been here before. I blinked, and then I could feel my legs again. My body was back to me, but nothing about it felt pained, or fatigued. There was a freedom here. As if… this was how it should be.     All at once, the white space cleared, and I was above the battlefield. The giants were gone. The girls had all gathered around a spot, and Applejack was… she was crying. Ah, now I understand.     “I died, didn’t I?”     “Ya did, Blood.”     Turning quick as I could, not believing the voice, trying my hardest to convince myself it wasn’t what I’d remembered, I saw him, floating in the sky with me.     “C-citrus…?”     He wasn’t as I remembered him. Well, not as I last saw him. This was not the old stallion I’d known, this was the young stallion in his prime. The pony I remembered who’d saved me from the mob and took it upon himself to give up his life in Manehattan for mine. Not once, but twice.     Citrus nodded. “That’s right, Blood.”     I hugged my brother. I could feel him, even in this strange state. He was real, right here with me, everything I once knew, the pony I’d missed the most.     “Oh, Goddess, Citrus, I—”     He put his hooves on my shoulders and pushed me off of him.     “Another time, Blood, another time. Ah’ll help ya as much as Ah can, but as it turns out, passin’ on ain’t so simple. Ah came here ta meet ya with her permission, but we’ve got a journey ahead of us. Just like when we were kids. The longer we wait here, the longer it’ll take ta get ya back ta all them ponies who’re waitin’ on ya.”     A journey? Ponies… waiting on me? “Citrus, I don’t understand.”     “Ya will. It’ll take time, but… well, that ain’t in short supply anymore, now that you’re here. Come on.” He nodded his head right, motioning for me to follow. As he started walking, I felt a weight in my heart that I had to remove before we could go any further.     “Citrus.”     He paused, then looked back at me with those green eyes of his. Just like his father, just like his son and daughter. Ponies of his ilk are cut from a different cloth. We might have been bound by blood, but even at the height of my greatest performance, I never could’ve been them.     “What is it, Blood?”     Letting my eyes fall back to the mortal realm, where the girls cried over what was left of my shell, I said, “I… know I’ve no right to ask this, but… could you ever forgive me?”     Sighing, Citrus shook his head. He walk-floated back to me and put a foreleg around my shoulder. “Listen here, little brother. Ah’ll tell ya the same thing Ah told that girl down there a week ago. What a hero is, what a hero does, and who a hero forgives, is who you do. Blood, my dear brother… do ya really think Ah would’ve saved ya all those years ago, if Ah blamed ya fer anythin’?”     Wrapping my forelegs around his neck, I cried into my big brother’s chest.     “Oh Goddess, Citrus, I’m so sorry!” Patting my back helping me along the path to the journey to the next act, he smiled.     “Ah know, Blood. Ah forgive ya.”