//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Pull My Devil Trigger // Story: SuShi's Bizarre Adventure: Fantasy Friendship // by Jojoleopard //------------------------------// As the force of clones swarmed Pinkie Pie, she did her best to shield herself as their hands began to claw at her, spraying blood up into the air each time they tore through her pink skin. She fought against the pain, conjuring up Golden Ticket as it swept one foot in an arc, knocking four clones away from her, but more kept coming. By now, she knew Rarity’s shadow clones could only exist in, not surprisingly, the shadows. In this warehouse, she had everything she needed to keep creating more and more clones. “You can’t win, dear.” Rarity took a few steps closer with her Stand continually creating more clones. “Devil Trigger is able to create shadow copies of people and Stands alike, even animals if I wanted to, and their moral alignment will always be reversed. Which means all these copies I’m creating of you and your friends, Pinkie dear, they are all evil. And being evil means they will stop at nothing to destroy you.” “We’ll see about that!” Golden Ticket began a volley of punches at Pinkie’s feet, freeing her long enough for her to roll out of the way as the rest of the shadow copies fell onto the ground she was standing at. Her Stand dashed for Rarity’s Devil Trigger, but it had only traveled about seven steps when more clones emerged from the darkness, one of them being White Buffalo, the Stand of Jostle Joyride. The shadowy copy of the motorcycle sped right at Golden Ticket, extending its skull and ramming both horns into its neck. Blood sprayed against the floor behind it, and also behind Pinkie as she felt a part of her neck burst open, now bleeding down her hands as she tried to staunch the wound. Rarity gave out an elegant laughter on the other side. “You see, Pinkie dear. It will be over soon. It was a mistake turning against the master.” Pinkie coughed and choked, fighting to stay conscious. She needed to last long enough to end this fight. Conventional methods weren’t going to work here, with Rarity at her most powerful in the darkness. “Cat’s got your tongue, darling?” Rarity raised the back of one hand to her chin. “That looks serious. I wonder just how much more you can sustain.” White Buffalo’s copy raced for her, and Pinkie rolled out of the way just in time as the skull extended to stab her. But as she rolled to a stop, White Buffalo’s horns extended from its skull and made a u-turn in the air, spearing her in the back of both shoulders. Pinkie coughed up more blood as she fell to the ground, with shadows closing in all around her. One reached down and grabbed her around the left arm. Pinkie tried to punch it, but right now, she was too weak to even give it a good hit. Her punch came up as nothing more than a friendly fist bump. More of them reached around her other limbs and hoisted her up as they stretched her from four different angles. “Since you were my friend before knowing the master, I will give you a last request.” Rarity sauntered over until she was right in front of Pinkie’s face. “Do you have any last words, darling? I’ll let you say anything. You can say whatever it is you’re thinking of, I mean, there are exceptions, but I’ll let you off with most things this moment.” “I-I-I’ll s-still beat you…” Pinkie croaked through her ruined neck. With the loss of blood, her vision was beginning to change because of the lack of oxygen. Her pink skin looked like a shade of blue at the moment and the room around her became a dull yellow. “Oh?” Rarity guffawed. “How do you plan on that? This warehouse is my zone, Pinkie. I rule the darkness. Think of me as a Queen of the Dark. In the dark, I am at my most powerful. You may have banished some of my copies outside on the sunny street, but what can you do here? All your Stand can do is open doors. I’m not afraid of that. My Stand can also fire lasers that can fly at the speed of light, which is three hundred thousand kilometers per second, burning through even the strongest of steel beams or even the outer surface of a tank. Even if I didn’t have my copies, I would still defeat you. From the beginning, you had no chance of winning.” “Th-that’s what you think!” Pinkie gurgled as blood filled her mouth. “Why do you think you… haven’t s-seen my G-Golden Tick-Ticket in a while?” “Oh? I suspected it was because I was too strong that you couldn’t bring it up to do something.” Rarity wore an amused face. “So what is it? What’s the real reason?” The smile on Pinkie’s face made Rarity’s warp into a suspicious expression. Suddenly, light poured down from above and the three shadow clones holding Pinkie’s left leg instantly vanished into nothing. “What? What is the meaning of this?” Rarity began looking around wildly, then she looked up. “You sly witch.” Pinkie grinned widely. “Exac-to-ly! Golden Ticket’s been real busy!” Above them were doors. Dozens of large doors, and they were all positioned on the ceiling, with one of them already opened, allowing the sunlight to pour in. “Golden Ticket is able to move doors and change the size of them, big or small,” Pinkie explained. “And while you were busy attacking me, I sent Golden Ticket to another place! And that place was…” Pinkie pointed upwards with a finger, a devilish grin on her face. “The ceiling!” One by one, all the doors started opening and light began flooding into the warehouse, vanquishing the copies holding on to Pinkie Pie, allowing her to stand on her own feet once again as Golden Ticket returned to her side. “This can’t be!” Rarity gasped. “You’re ding dong right it is!” Pinkie chirped. “And now that all this light is coming in through the doors, your Devil Trigger can’t copy me anymore! You can’t make any more clones while the sun’s shining in.” “But my Devil Trigger can still shoot you down!” Rarity retorted. “I’ll still finish you.” But Pinkie didn’t falter. “Did you see the pattern in which I set up the doors?” Rarity looked confused. Pinkine continued. “It’s in a checkerboard pattern. All those open spaces are like cutting holes in a piece of paper. Only paper’s light, and the roof of this warehouse is made of metal, which is heavy. Something’s gotta give, and all that weight… is gonna come crashing down on you!” The last thing Rarity could do was look up, just as a huge square of metal roofing fell down onto her head, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and sending little metal bits everywhere, followed by the rest of the checkerboard ceiling, making the same pattern on the floor underneath. “As above, so below!” Pinkie jumped into the air and kicked both feet together, then spat a glob of blood on the floor. Just then, there was a scuffle of footsteps outside and Jojo and the others appeared at the open doorway behind Pinkie. “Pinkie, what happened, are you okay?” Fluttershy was the first to run up to her friend. “Nope!” She answered happily as blood spurted out from her neck wound. “But I beat Rarity. And I’m sure she got hit on the head real hard. The mind control should’ve worn out. Phew, I’m bushed.” “We need to get her some help before she bleeds out,” Applejack said as she inspected her friend for wounds. “No need, Sushi here’s gonna fix her right up.” Jojo waved for Sunset to come closer. “Come on, Sushi, show ‘em what you got.” “Right. Pegasus Fantasy!” Sunset called up her Stand. The silver winged Stand appeared behind her and stretched its arms forward. In an instant, Pinkie began feeling her body move inside. She couldn’t quite explain it, but it felt like little creatures moving in and out of her skin and blood, slowly repairing the damage to her neck and back. And once they stopped moving, she felt good as new. In fact, she didn’t even feel tired from the fight she just had, not that she felt tired very often, but she felt great. “Gee, thanks Sushi Sunset!” Pinkie bounced over and shook her hand so vigorously that the other girl was floating in the air for a few seconds. “How’d you do that?” “I’m still rather new to this stuff, but…” Sunset rubbed the back of her neck. “I think Pegasus Fantasy resets you to a certain point by manipulating your molecules and stuff, so whatever happened to you in the last few moments never happened to your body. I need to concentrate, though. So if I'm doing it, try not to interrupt me.” “That’s really useful…” Fluttershy said. “We never had this before.” “Now we should see about Rarity.” Applejack bent down beside the metal plate over her. Rarity’s legs were sticking out at the bottom. “Highwayman!”  Applejack’s Stand sparkled into view and slid its fingers under the metal panel. It had huge hands and where the arms were supposed to be were springs that went all the way up to its shoulders, which were covered in some kind of dusty cloak. It had a huge smile with jagged teeth on its very round orange face, which was also covered with a blindfold and a tricorn hat. As it began to lift, a sharp grunt emerged from its mouth, followed by some kind of screeching as the ceiling panel was lifted off Rarity’s prone body. Blood ran from the top of her head, likely where she had been hit and as Applejack dragged her out, they found her right hip bone was sticking out of her skin, along with some gashes across her waist. “I’ve got this.” Sunset faced one palm towards her. “Pegasus Fantasy, work your magic.” Her Stand returned and after raising its arms out again, Rarity’s body began to heal, and the blood on her body and head began to snake back to her wounds, before everything returned to normal. Once all that was done, Rarity’s eyes fluttered open and she attempted to sit up. "Phew, it really takes a toll on you..." Sunset staggered back, almost falling on her butt. It seemed this skill wasn't something she could keep using carelessly. “W-What… is going on?” She rubbed the top of her head and groaned. “Applejack? Fluttershy? Pinkie? And… Sunset Shimmer? And who’s that? He’s hot.” “Yep, Rarity’s all back to normal now.” Applejack rose as she helped Rarity up. “Good ta have ya back to normal.” “I remember… that I was taken against my will. Someone tried to control my mind.” “Nope. They actually managed to control your mind.” Pinkie dug out a potted plant from her skirt pocket and waved it around. “Just like how I have this plant! They had you in the palm of their hands, whoever they are. They want to take over the world.” “I can’t believe it.” She placed a hand against her forehead and pretended to faint. “We were being used in some grand scheme of some world domination plot. Do we have leads?” “Nothing yet. We were going to plan out our next move when you attacked us.” Jojo reached a hand out to her. “Jostle Joyride. You can call me Jojo.” “That’s an interesting name.” Rarity took his hand. “For an interesting gentleman.” “Uh, yeah okay. Ah think we better head back and gather some information before the next agent strikes,” Applejack said. “They know who we are. They’ll stop at nothin’ ta make sure we never find out who the real felon is.” Seeing the sense that Applejack was speaking, the group left the now roofless warehouse, with Jojo in the lead. Little did they know that atop a nearby building stood a rainbow-haired girl, watching them with narrowed eyes as a blue scarf fluttered behind her in the wind. “So you beat Rarity, did you?” she said slowly as she put a toothpick between her lips. “Well, you won’t get far. Not when I’m your next opponent. And your last.”