Gloriosa could hear the air passing by as a force approximating the shape of a man slammed into the mess hall doors she’d been standing in front of moment’s ago. Tackling Pinkie Pie over to get her out of the way, the milliseconds ticked by as the awful shriek of shattering wood eclipsed all other noise. Splinters and woodchips flew out in all directions, the monster piloting X’s body continuing to careen through the wall and into the cabin itself. Glass, wood, sheet metal, everything was being broken; the monster shaped like a man proving to be a wrecking ball to her childhood home. All while laughing in a manner totally unlike any human ever could, a powerful northern born wind whipping across the camp to gnaw at the skin with cold.
“Move! Move move move!" Gloriosa yelped as she scrambled up with Pinkie Pie in her grip, staggering up and trying to keep her footing.
Boreas stomped through a half shattered window, ripping chunks of aged timbers out and splitting his face in a wide grin. Gloriosa could follow his line of sight and knew he was looking directly at her with dead, yet alert eyes; wearing X’s face like a mask. The scar tissue across X’s brow and lips seemed stretched to the point of tearing or being flush with blood, with how wide a grin Boreas bore.
She felt an uncanny sense of deja vu, sound getting blotted out for a moment as all she could see was Boreas staring at her. She felt the wind, the cold in mind and body from the harsh wind, and for the briefest of moments she was no longer in an increasingly trashed campground, but mentally inside a car that looked far bigger on the inside than they typically did nowadays. The northern winds whipped up once again and the daze started to block out more sensations, a primal fear paralyzing her body.
The still lucid Pinkie Pie shouted out something, something indiscernible to Gloriosa Daisy with how her mind was acting up, and yanked her down. The ground rolled and rumbled, what looked like a gigantic mole tunnel trenching through the earth and going right for them. Exploding out of the ground, Megalon let out a rare battle cry that sounded like whirling gears played through a drum set; and launched himself directly at the threat directly behind Gloriosa and Pinkie. At first, he seemed poised to collide with his compatriots, but the cyborg did a commendable job twisting around midair and avoiding them, bending about to collide feet-first with the transgressor. Megalon tackled the possessor of his friend’s body back through the already crumbling wall, Boreas never shutting up his cackling even as a brawl ensued within the mess hall.
Shattering glass and snapping wood was audible from beyond the cabin, and was almost deafening within when played over Boreas’ rabid laughter.
Ripping a table from its foundations, Boreas let out another wail of demented glee as he brought it down atop Megalon’s scalp. The wood snapped in two instantly over the cyborg’s head, engendering some brief sparks and some lost hairs; but if that slowed Megalon down he scarcely showed it. Diving down with a drill whirling, Megalon jammed it into the tough floorboards and locked down. The drill whirled but instead of rotating, he himself spun around rapidly in a circle like some kind of bizarre breakdancing move; swinging his feet out and tripping up Boreas.
Megalon spun back around to rise and spring forward, cocking back an arm and ready to punch out with a whirling drill. Boreas’ face contorted as he lay back against the refrigerator he’d been thrown against. Gone was the mania, replaced with pain and confusion more than anything else. Monster X looked back at the man who was not a man charging him with a dumbstruck visage expressed in his wide eyes and parted jaw. Be it at the prospect of harming his friend’s body, confusion as to what was going on, or both; Megalon did exactly what Boreas wanted and flinched, his drill slowing for a fraction of a second before he could commit to the attack fully again.
In that sliver of a moment, a powerful set of hands grabbed onto the drill configuration with a crushing grip; the servos inside Megalon’s forearm groaning from getting stopped-up despite him trying to resume the rotations. The cyborg grunted and staggered as Boreas picked himself up, struggling over his arm for several long moments. Megalon beheld and committed to memory the insane, bloodthirsty visage stenciled across Monster X’s face; knowing every detail upon X’s face and how this thing was clearly not his friend and comrade despite the fiend wearing his skin.
Northern winds whipped into the half ruined mess hall, chilling the skin and gnawing upon bone.
“Hehaha, I remember you. The cowering whelp has a spine after all! Did you ever show this around your brother dearest? Can’t have, otherwise he’d have brought you instead of leaving you a babysitter," Boreas sneered with a grin nonetheless, ice starting to form up around his fingers and grafting onto Megalon’s stuck drill, “There is no master to save a miscreant like you-"
He was cut off by Megalon taking advantage of their positioning to bulldoze forward, smashing Boreas’ back into a wooden pillar and bursting through it. He kept on charging, despite ice starting to grow over his forearm more and more, bashing the windigo into the back wall before whipping around to hit him against another. Boreas shaped dents were embossed into the outside walls, the entire mess hall shaking and cracking.
Boreas’s grip on Megalon’s forearm tightened so greatly it seemed like his own joints would burst. A retching screech of metal warping cried out as an eerie yellowed glow took hold across Boreas’ hands. A sideways glance by Megalon made him passively thankful for the changes his body got after Godzilla defeated him in the Final Wars. It was fortune he couldn’t feel pain in his mechanical parts, as suddenly the gravitational energy inside his arm spiked across the dark magic ice atop and inside the drill. Metal warped, bent, and snapped until the magnitudes of g-forces; ice jamming inside the empty space and tearing into the softer machinery as the intensified gravity pulled the ice inside the mechanisms.
Sparks and smoke billowed out before a shriek of metal split the air. A small explosion sounded off inside Megalon’s arm before the limb was engulfed in a flash of light and outburst of metal fragments and ice shards. Boreas grinned before twisting about in a skillful manner he didn’t naturally possess, rotating while pivoting on one foot to land a back-kick into Megalon’s gut that struck metal plating so hard it sounded like a gong was struck.
Megalon staggered to his feet, a dent in his chest leaking sparks and some blood, missing his left arm from the elbow down. Thankfully that portion was entirely mechanical, a kind mercy of having lost the real thing over a decade ago. Remembering something his brother had taught him, he tapped at a few spots and mentally willed some of the internal mechanisms, dropping off some of the broken remnants of his forearm to avoid being weighed down.
“Aaah no blood to go with the fear, kid? You certainly aren’t exuding nerve there. Your brother, the bat, even my host had more guts than you; not to mention more brains! You got little of both and plenty of fright," Boreas jerred while waving about Megalon’s forearm, hands on his hips, “Latter’s pouring off you plenty! Spooked I nearly got that pretty pink Bearer brat as a kid and offed that Retainer’s bitch of a mother?”
He grinned at how he could tell the cyborg’s focus briefly shifted to the others in the campground, at how he put himself between them and the maniac, “Oh Notus’ spawn will thrive off the dread you have!"
Megalon remained silent, looking about the room while trying to channel his inner X. Eyes studied everything around him and started to pull up a few ideas when he looked between the main beam holding up the rafters, all the nooks and crannies in the room, and the kitchen behind him.
“Ah pity you ain’t got much guts to go with the gears, but thank you; boy! Ah, it’s been so long since I’ve had a physical body! Why, if I could feel joy I’d be celebrating!... In fact I will!"
Megalon was trying to sidestep his way towards the kitchen around the lunatic, but was cut off by a burst of ice tearing out of the ground in front of him. Ice covered much of the floor, impeding his movements in the slipperiness and cold that dredged up horrific thoughts, but did nothing to slow or falter the windigo. Boreas for his part was as giddy as a schoolboy, condensing more gravitational pressure on the robotic arm and drill to crush it down across its length. Ice also formed across the surface and shaped it into something of a cane or short staff. He moved along the surface of the frozen floor with a motion that looked one part ice skating and the other part tad dancing.
“Iiiii cooooould- while away the hours! Conferring with victim’s glowers- Boreas, evidently deciding in his manic mind that his daughter wouldn’t be the only musically inclined in the family, waved the make-shift cane about while sidestepping about like he was dancing on a stage. He punctuated it by shifting the gravity in the room with a twirl of a finger and sending the poor cyborg bashing against the floor and walls every time he swung the cane towards it.
Boreas punctuated himself with the knocks of Megalon's head on the ground, skipping over him and stomping on his head as he did, "-Resulting from their pain!"
Megalon groaned as he rose back up and spat out several projectiles from his maw, but Boreas just nimbly batted them aside with the cane made from the cyborg’s removed forearm mid-dance without breaking stride. He spun around closer to the Nebulan enforcer and smashed the rod of metal and ice across Megalon’s face hard enough to stagger the larger man. Sent sprawling and now with one half of his goggles shattered, the cyborg was quick to regain his footing and cry out as he grabbed and swung a stool chair like a club; only for Boreas to nimbly pirouette away.
The windigo perched up on the cane briefly to click his heels together before punting a wooden table into Megalon, who did his best to block it one-armed while the wood shattered around him. Huffing and hurling it back at the now murderous song-and-dance number, his efforts were for naught when Boreas upwelled a mass of gravity to throw himself across the room like a ballerina taking a leap.
“And as they’d plead, ‘Why oh Why’,!- I’d just freeze over their eyes!-" tapping his cane against the ground while swaying across the hall, before whipping it about to point with what had been Megalon’s hand. Yellow lights flickered across his stolen eyes and a low hum groaned through the air. Megalon, who had been rising to try and make for the kitchen area, grunted as he was suddenly yanked into the ground with intensified gravitons.
Megalon ignored the frost building up on his body, the one-armed cyborg frantically crawling his way across the floor and spitting out more orbs that rolled across the room. Boreas still didn’t shut up as sent a wave of gravitons crashing into Megalon's back to pin him to the floor, before the windigo jumped closer and landed atop the larger kaiju, literally tap dancing a quick number on on Megalon’s back. Stomping a foot on the half-machine's leg hard enough to bend metal and bone, he jabbed the downed kaiju with the pointed tip of his cane to further punctuatehis sentences. Skin split and sparks flew and he at last got some blood.
“Because I never-! Have-! Any-! Shame!"
Kicking over the groaning Megalon, Boreas cracked an enormous grin as he held aloft his bludgeon, keen to smash down directly at the cyborg’s exposed eye through the broken goggles. Lifting up his remaining arm, Megalon stabbed it into the floorboards, locking the servos and letting the rotations of the powerful drill instead rotate his body around. Boreas staggered backwards off of him, leaving Megalon open to kick out with both feet across a wooden beam. Thick boots crunched the wood underfoot and blew out the other direction. The ceiling rafters groaned and creaked, support smashed out from under them as bolts snapped and nails bent.
Megalon tried to get back to his feet after rolling out of the way, only for a force of gravity to crush down on him and pin him to the floor. A cane base was stabbed at his back hard enough to bruise.
"What’s wrong? I’ll tell you why! As a kid, that pink one shoulda dieeeed! But I guess I can’t complain!" He snickered and twirled the cane, literally walking over Megalon while keeping him pinned under the intensified gravity, ice starting to burst from the floor and climb the prone cyborg’s body.
Whimsically throwing the cane up in a spin before catching it, Boreas punctuated his dance by stomping on the surviving metallic hand Megalon bore, trying to crush the fingers underheel, “Zephyrus has a ploy, your friend’s body is my toy! And Noty’s spawn will-"
“OH WOULD YOU SHUT UP!"
The hand swiveled around, something one of flesh couldn’t do, and grabbed onto Boreas’ heel. The windigo paused long enough to notice a few things. Firstly, the large number of odd, almost clay looking spheres rolling across the floor. Secondly, the fact that Megalon’s eyes were crackling with a golden light that arched between them and across a star shaped pattern on his forehead. The last, but not least, was only spotted when the irate, battered cyborg yanked him off his footing and hurled him across the room.
The makeshift cane, made of Megalon’s forearm, still had a discernible hand. And by remote command, the hand was mobile. As it careened towards his face midfall, it raised its middle digit in a distinctive gesture he’d picked up from Sonata when she got angry at an online game.
"I... was tasked, with protecting Sonata and the camp," Panting in his breath, Megalon winced and forced his eyes back open, he huffed through split lips and spat out a tooth while a loud creaking sounded out from him swinging his good arm around to snap the joints back into place, "My team and Master have faith in me, and short of being too broken to move, I'll never let them down!"
The robotic hand flipped Boreas the bird before breaking through some of the ice contorting it, latching onto his face as the windigo tumbled. Megalon broke free of the ice and gravity binding him and let loose a torrent of lightning from where his horn would be.
-You told me to always defend myself X, I’m sorry I gotta hurt you body to do so, but you made it clear to me after Kaizer Ghidorah that I was to always protect the team!-
The lightning hit all the napalm grenades Megalon had been constantly spewing during the fight. Megalon quickly turned and rushed to where he’d been trying to get to, a spot in the kitchen hastily patched with loose boards. He’d broken a promise to Ms. Daisy to not bore through the floorboards again in a hasty effort to access the kitchen for the party last night with Pinkie Pie and Sonata Dusk. For once, he was glad to break a promise as he cannonballed into the tunnels to escape the ensuing blast when the lightning burst set off all the grenades.
==============
“CELESTIA LOOK OUT!" Sunset Shimmer screamed as she sprinted forward, despite her legs feeling like they were freezing up. It took an inordinately high number of steps to reach her mentor and in some spans it could truthfully be compared to wading through icy water.
Princess Celestia followed Sunset’s line of sight and looked behind her while diving aside, privy to seeing her student this frightened meaning it had to be something bad. But when she looked back, she didn’t see the blizzard condensing into a physical form, a monstrosity from a long departed era, lunging for her. It was all a void.
Suddenly Sunset Shimmer yelled out again and tackled her into the other direction of where she’d been going. Reeling and still trying to understand what was going on, a tearing sound went past her head. The former alicorn whipped her head around to try and see, having to all but pick up Sunset Shimmer with her in the mad scramble.
“Sunset?! Sunset, what’s wrong?!" She cried while trying to help her up.
“We have to run, now!" Sunset gasped with a whimper, clutching at her arm. Celestia was about to say something again, only for her mind and jaw to go slack at the sight of red trickling out from between the fingers clutching from Sunset’s upper arm.
“What happened?! What is it?!" Celestia managed to finally yell out as she and Sunset broke into a mad sprint that seemed to go into infinity with no particular course, the former unicorn seemingly changing their course at a whim. A look back through her eyes only kept showing more of the same.
Nothingness into the beyond, and cold all around.
Sunset Shimmer saw much more, as the empty space around her neck that yearned for an Element kept flaring, linking her with two minds. One of them was a totally unknowable horror whose only vividly described thought was that he wanted her mentor dead. The other caused the infinity in sight to flicker on and off at random intervals. From nothing to an overload of sights, smells, and sounds. Back to the school, back to the Fall Formal celebration, back before Twilight had come.
Sunset Shimmer could only mutter pitiful sentences as she immediately recognized why they were here, her neck retreating back behind her shoulders, "... No, not here... anywhere but here.."
================
“Irys, on your left!" Godzilla barked and Irys swung around with arms wide and a projected barrier of sound pulsed forth from her body. A mass came flying at her and she lunged forward to bash the shield onto the transgressor, only to feel a now familiar disappointment when a statue in the shape of a young girl cast in ice smashed into the shield.
Anguirus was about to call out upon glimpsing a shape to his right, only to see it once again become ‘desynced’ in their movements. Wise to the misdirect by now, he instinctively ducked back to avoid a mass of jagged ice launched from the mist from colliding with his head. The ice was knocked off course with a smack across its side to bat it out of the air, privy to which direction it was flying and who was behind him.
Another shard of ice seemed to appear out of nowhere, flying low and off to the left again past Anguirus. It flew at the same target, a wide-eyed Aria Blaze briefly pausing her song and her levitation faltering for a moment as she tried to rapidly decide between bracing for impact or dodging. Thankfully a powerful leg punted the ice lance away, cracking it in two on impact and sending both shards flying off course.
Burning eyes met Kaizer Aria’s, “Keep the song going! With all this cover we’ll never hit them on our own!"
Kaizer Aria, who’d been in the midst of charging up a pulse of magic to expel the dark magic choking the air, nodded while trying to get back to the melody she’d been building to; gravitons swirling about her form to keep the empowered siren off the ground. The brilliance intensified and Godzilla could actually feel the intense cold in the air ebbing away in her presence.
Junior smirked, pulling an icicle lodged in his thigh out and letting the wound heal. He’d taken the shot for Aria after it became clear the windigo was focusing on her almost exclusively. The fact that the few blows or projectiles aimed at them seemed to go high whereas the windigo aimed low on the siren wasn’t lost on him. Headshots for them, body blows for Aria.
Silently, Irys and Anguirus fell back to his flanks to cover the other directions as best they three could.
“It’s aiming to disable her, not kill," Junior huffed while keeping his guard up for any sign of an oncoming attack or flank, “That, they’re trying on us."
“Comforting!" Irys whined while ironically putting her back to someone she’d been fighting earlier that week, “The windigo went for her necklace like they did to Sonata, it disables a siren’s magic."
“Wish they pulled their punches on us," Anguirus grunted while tearing a chunk of ice that had grown over his left arm off, losing some skin in the process, “So it knows she’s their weakness."
Junior’s eyes narrowed at the mists and what was within it, “With the tricks this one has, I don’t think that’s the only reason.”
He glanced back at Aria, feeling the air distort from warping gravity as she pooled her power into a well with her necklace at the epicenter. Unknown as he was to this kind of magic, he knew a building force about to reach its peak when he sensed one; the calming and yet melodic singing Aria Blaze emitted compiling atop itself with growing echoes. A curious thought crossed his mind both in notice of Aria mixing Ghidorah-like gravity controls with her own magic, using some intensification of the latter to almost ‘pile up’ her singing voice and echo to make it sound like there was more than just one of her.
-Powers synergized in a new way than the original, like what happened when the Nightmare bonded to me or Rarity. Our new forms weren’t exactly like Luna’s. Rarity said it happened with that thing that afflicted Sunset Shimmer as well… What if…!-
Focus snapped back to something flying at his face, the monster king snarling as he backhanded another ice copy that had been launched at his head; turning about to sweep his azure ray back and forth to either score a glancing hit or force the enemy back. He had good aim but couldn’t trust his senses, and with the bizarre reality warping at play where he could walk away from the trio he was currently with and wind up walking towards them without changing direction; he didn’t want to start blasting in any random direction, lest there be friendly fire.
But, the off thought of the girls did jog his train of thought back to where it had been.
-Princess Twilight is bearing the Element of Magic, but candidates for a native bearer would need to exist. If the Rainbooms upon exposure to magic started developing powers like their Equestrian counterparts, what if that’s happening here? What kind of powers might someone who’s counterpart is a magical prodigy develop?!-
He seemingly got his thoughts granted when both Irys and Anguirus called out. The blurry shape darted about again, reappearing in disjointed, unpredictable places in the blink of an eye. For a split second, there seemed to be multiple forms moving about in a kaleidoscope of chaotic motion. Crisscrossing limbs, seemingly running on air, jumping in a forwards motion and yet going backwards, all as a strong gale of wind roared to life from the west.
An explosion of motion ushered forth utter chaos. Several icy copies of Twilight Sparkle’s body, contorted into snarling, barely human visages, rained down on the trio of defenders. Purple glows bent and contorted the ice, amplifying force with the tight thrall of dark magic; sometimes ripping out pieces from the oncoming wave to launch forth like lances poised to impale. And the worst of all came from the distant rumblings of mass. Through the haze an icey wave did advance; solid and razor edged and yet liquid enough to flow. It seemed to scrape the sky with its height and crashed through the mists like a frozen tsunami made animate, big enough to swallow up seemingly everything in sight. An advancing wall of death that would come soon enough, as the other assaults would hound the defenders.
Irys’ body flickered with ancient runes, a piercing shriek of a cry splitting the winds as her purple ray lanced through the oncoming lances to slash several apart. She would have been struck by a pouncing, icy copy of the enemy bearing a shiv of frost in her hand, had her sibling not yanked her out of the way and buried his fist through the frozen form. Anguirus shrugged off a glancing slash across his cheek to backhand away another ice copy, trying to protect his less durable sibling as she in turn canceled her ray to throw up another sonic shield to protect her brother from the dark magic propelled flechettes.
“They keep flanking from different angles!" Anguirus snarled while anchoring himself to block another shard of ice with his spiky greaves, “We’d need to draw them closer to guess where they’ll spring from!"
“And deal with that!" Godzilla roared while clearly indicating towards the dark mass of the towering frozen wave advancing through the mists.
Irys shot down another oncoming projectile, grunting as she smacked aside a still-airborne fragment and winced from the frost starting to build up on her arms, “Great, how do we do either of that?”
Godzilla took a glance back at Aria Blaze and then looked forward. In that span, he drew upon the cards dealt to him.
“I have an idea, cover me!" Godzilla roared to his allies, though Irys was too preoccupied to ask what he was doing or needing it for. Right now that beam of his would be pretty handy given her brother couldn’t assist in shooting down the onslaught let loose upon them.
Anguirus could only trust in his friend as the tsunami of frozen death loomed closer and closer like a countdown clock. Even with their enhanced durability, there had to be a limit to how much punishment they could take and if that wave hit them it wouldn’t just be the Rainbooms that might be at serious risk. He panted as he bashed his shoulder into a cold form to knock aside another ice copy, which still managed to gouge him in the side. He swore against his altered form carrying with it a less toughed hide, ripping an icicle out and ignoring the frozen visage of Twilight Sparkle that he’d otherwise find very disconcerting.
Two stomps cracked the rooftop in defiance of the storm, crackling heat starting to flicker across teeth exposed as lips curled back. Sparks and arcing energy crisscrossed a body as something new flickered in front of Godzilla’s face. His pupils contracted in strain but, in some ways, he almost seemed to grin. Aria combining magic with the power her lover had given her was not an isolated instance. Over the month after ridding the worlds of King Ghidorah once and for all, he’d had plenty of time to watch and plenty more time to learn. Both from his own pupil, but even more so from the princess he’d been spending plenty of time with as she taught her’s.
-The power radiating off the siren is keeping the negativity at bay. Time to test that theory about magic rubbing off on those the Rainbooms have been around, else this trick Luna showed off to Starlight and Chibi is going to be a bust...-
For the first time in a battle, he tapped into a power beyond that which his father’s death granted him.
Irys’ eyes widened as she felt the surge of power crackle over her head and remained there, humming with energy. Looking up, she beheld a luminance forming a ring of light that hovered in the air, blinking dimly at first before condensing into a burning mass. The hum it gave off doubled as another ring appeared slightly ahead of the first, then another, then another; the brightness and audible charge increasing each time. They started small, buth each successive ring grew brighter and wider, before expanding in size several meters out to be large enough in span she felt her human form would fit within it.
Behind her, Aria Blaze’s eyes momentarily widened with recognition from a bygone era. She knew that kind of spell from observing Starswirl, though knew not of the chain of events that lead to this kaiju knowing a Magnification Lens spell. She wanted to watch, both it and the dreadful tsunami of frost bearing down on them; but the pulse of her magic engendered a spark of warmth within. In sight of what could be oblivion and salvation, she closed her eyes and sighed; before picking back up her chorus. The gravitons were warping space just enough to amplify and carry her melody through the momentary pause. She continued to sing into the gravity well built up between her hands, condensing an entire song number of her mother’s love ballad into a single pulse she’d let free, if she lived long enough.
She had to keep faith they could cover her long enough to do it, and that no monster from the past would cripple her like they had Sonata.
The rumbling grew louder as the frozen mass surged closer and closer through the twisted, uncanny space and mists. Constantly breaking ice creating a horrid cacophony of snaps and shrieks, death bearing down on all that could be seen. It mattered not how the several stories tall wave was in reality, with all the twisted physics and distorted space the windigos had evidently put them all in. It also didn’t matter what Irys or Anguirus could throw at it considering lack of time and set up. It did matter however, how it was to be met.
And Zephyrus had recognized what was happening with Godzilla. He’d recognized an echo of his ancient enemy and sought to shut it out the moment he realized this beast was managing to perform any variant of a spell he’d felt wounded him before from Starswirl.
Torn earth gripped by telekinesis and lances of ice ripped forth from the ground, aimed to wound or shatter the focus of two budding problems before they could become so. This they could not allow, even if this all was a ploy to buy time to entertain Notus’ tedious need for a hunt.
The windigo tapped into Twilight Sparkle’s latent magic once more and mixed it with his own, feeling sound and touch warp to a void as the world crawled by slower. Moving from his original placement, leaving behind a copy made of ice in his wake, Zephyrus sprinted across the rooftop, heedless of the slipperiness of the ice, to rush at the group. The kaiju had slowed to an inching pace, fiery rings of magic created by Godzilla inching along as they solidified invisible lenses between them; but the warping energy around the siren was still moving at a normal pace.
The countdown reached zero and the world returned to its normal pace for a second’s breath, both Irys and Anguirus’ eyes locked upon them as they moved to face the possessed Twilight, before Zephyrus could nearly halt it all again. In the span of almost totally frozen time, Zephyrus let loose several wails of horrific shrieks; setting up gales of wind to carry their malefic magics carrying the worst of mental pain and evil thoughts. Notus might have failed, but their efforts had inflicted damage against Godzilla. These mighty monsters could be hurt, and Zephyrus had succeeded where his less calculating cohort failed when he got even with the cyborg for the upset at the school.
It was a rare moment Zephyrus was taken off guard. But when the dark magic laced gusts of frigid wind slammed into Anguirus and Irys, that’s exactly what happened. Zephyrus’ eyes briefly widened when the horror-drenched gales smashed into the pair who put themselves between it and Godzilla. The poisonous influence did sink in somewhat, but unlike how it drained into and drowned the mind of Gigan and Adagio, the dark energies only seeped in slightly before being repelled. It was, unknown to him, exactly the same resistance, though not immunity, the two had enjoyed against Notus’ initial outburst. Whereas the others were tormented by the South Wind’s mental decay and assaulted by their own worst thoughts, the Guardian Beasts had experienced mostly just confusion. The influence gripped, but it did not strangle.
Zephyrus was anything but unintelligent. He would retreat if it suited him, whereas Boreas would mangle himself against a superior force. He would strike when the target was vulnerable, not waste time making them vulnerable like Notus enjoyed after a hunt. He knew his Equestrian foe’s strengths and weaknesses, and he’d come to understand some of the new kaiju as well. But what was eldritch could never foresee something totally out of context to them.
Mana and Equestrian magic didn’t mix easily, and like oil on water; his influence rolled off of Irys and Anguirus rather than drowning them. And be it as uncanny as it was, his enemies could sense something in the windigos’ ploys had hit a bump in the road.
“To the left!" Anguirus roared as he kicked away a mass of thrown concrete and frost Zephyrus had loosed, shrugging off the stinging as more wind smashed into his face. There almost seemed to be a voice within it, but it was garbled and but a mere whisper. He paid it no heed, having far more important things to worry about.
Irys fired in the to the left as her brother had indicated, almost tagging the possessed Twilight with a quick burst of her sonic ray. Just like before, they’d disappear and reappear, but this time they didn’t dive off into the mist but only grew closer. And she could see which way they’d been facing when they pulled their disappearing act.
“Anguirus, 3 o’clock!"
Anguirus didn’t look to his right, but he did grab onto a flying mass of ice that nearly speared him in the face and spun about to throw it in that direction. Intuition had proven useful, as through the roaring westerly winds, he could glimpse the spear of ice he’d grasped smash into a copy of frost cast in the enemy’s image.
“Left again!" Irys called out an ice copy shattered fifteen meters away.
“Right!" Anguirus grunted as he flicker of Twilight Sparkle’s form appeared and disappeared twelve meters away.
“Now, your right!" Irys cried out over the wind before sweeping a sonic beam to try and cover her brother’s flank from a foe ten meters out.
They were resisting the powerful winds smashing into with the dread it wrought, but their foe was a slippery one. Can’t exactly keep a plan a secret if you needed to scream it out to each other, letting Zephyrus know which direction was in focus and where to dodge away from.
-They’re close enough to get to now, but they keep predicting or dodging everything we do. Godzilla needs time and we can’t let them get to the siren! We must call out over all this wind and they’ll know what we’re doing each time somehow. Just gotta get them by surprise once...-
Anguirus’ mind raced at a mile a second while kicking through a mass of ice thrown in his direction, punting it away and wincing at the pain of the sharp edges digging through his skin on the shin. It was perhaps through the panic and adrenaline he perhaps struck upon his lifeline. The cold around them made him long for fire, his element. The element he should have mastered as the alpha Guardian Beast. It was as much a useful birthright as the siren’s magic or Godzilla’s nuclear might which they’d rely on now.
He might have lost much of his element, but he didn’t lose his birthright just yet. There was something he had as much as his long-lost sister had rediscovered hers.
Through the howling winds of Zephyrus, melodies of Aria, and audible charging of Godzilla; the deep rumblings of Terra’s ancient past cried out into the dark storm. The alpha frequency, understandable to Guardian Beasts alone, issued forth a decree in a loud rumbling like thunder.
-When they try to flank us again, swap spots and grab in the opposite direction the moment they disappear!-
Irys’ eyes widened briefly, unused to the message after only having heard her brother mentally speak in their familial tongue once prior. But shocked as she was by being so abruptly reunited with what had brought them together in the first place, she understood.
Aria’s song was picking up behind them, Godzilla’s gambit was building to a crescendo, and the wall of ice that could prove their deaths had blocked out the sky as it nearly reached them. Intuition was all they could have right now. Godzilla and Aria, the windigo’s targets, were behind them, and they’d gotten close enough to try and flank himself and Irys with their movements. But with Godzilla pointing his attack above them at the oncoming ice tsunami, there were only so many directions Zephyrus could go now.
Zephyrus dived and sprinted about, stopping time every passing moment they could to reposition and launch more punishment at the stubbornly durable obstacles in his way. They didn’t know what kind of beastial, low rumbling the spiny one was giving off; stubbornly annoying as it was not to understand what language it was. They were clearly trying something, the two remaining brutes; but he couldn’t afford to pay it much heed. They were clearly just the lackeys, lacking the drive nor power to be frontrunners in their groups. Pawns in front of the queens, bishops, knights, and rooks. Too much was pressing for time. The tsunami was close, Boreas’s spawn was almost finished with the song magic she was crafting to no doubt muddy their plans, and he wouldn’t let this Godzilla live to insult him by using his ancient enemy’s spell in even a shoddy, amateurish manner.
The cry of Anguirus called out the moment Zephyrus’ latest dilation of time started muting the world, as the windigo sailed past Irys towards Aria again
-Now, to the center!-
Irys reacted on pure instinct with her brother’s cry. She reached aside and grabbed hold of the first solid mass her peripheral vision detected and fingers grasped. Cold shot up her arm, but it was ignored. She’d clearly grabbed onto another copy made of ice, but she had a plan to follow through with. Pivoting the moment she had a grip, she spun about to swing the icy copy of Twilight Sparkle into the center within Godzilla’s ring. The burning heat that wasn’t fire forced her to let go, but her grimace soon turned to a grin.
The windigo had tried to flank them again, but without its influence to seep into their minds and afflict them nor being able to understand the call of their family; they’d at last been caught unawares. Anguirus had Zephyrus by the leg, a look of shock evident in the possessed girl’s face being visible for the briefest of moments as he too pivoted around and let go of her. Zephyrus’ body crashed into their icy clone hard enough to shatter it. The sight of it as the milliseconds ticked by was pure satisfaction to the weary gyaos, after the horror had evaded any meaningful hits for so long.
And they were directly within a glowing brilliance from Godzilla’s new attack.
The azure glow given off by the energy rings was familiar to both Irys and Anguirus even if the attack wasn’t. Both looked back just in time to see a mixture of purple and blue hues burst free from Godzilla’s maw with a thundering roar. Spiral atomic breath focused through Starswirl’s ultimate magic lens, the name Ultima Burst had a nice ring to it even if he needed a lot of set up to use it.
The ensuing beam of blue wrath, spiraled by violet streaks, flew dead center through the first ring and the ensuing encirclements, growing in span as they did. Zephyrus’ facade of calm at last broke as the brilliance overtook their host body. It wasn’t Harmony’s magic so it couldn’t kill them, but they couldn’t lose what they’d worked so hard to gain. Shrieking in a mixture of rage and perhaps fear, and a moment later their place and form was taken up by a mass of ice cast in an image that continued to express that wailing visage continuing until the plasmatic wrath smashed into it and flew through the successive rings. They’d dodged death,, but they’d been impeded. And Godzilla wasn’t even aiming for them to begin with.
By the time it flew out of the last ring, it was wide enough to engulf a large car even at Godzilla’s shrunken size. The bolstered torrent of power slammed into the frozen tsunami with an echoing crash of splitting ice. It couldn’t destroy the dark matter, but the sheer concussive force had shattered the structure in one blow. What had been a writhing mass roughly moving in the same direction was unified and ordered as the pieces all fell in the same direction.
Broken ice rained down like hail, pushed aside by the magnitude of the spread blast. Finally, the azure beam fizzled out and the illuminating rings dimmed away.
Irys gawked and couldn’t help but stare a bit at one of the beings that finally killed Grand King Ghidorah evidently a month ago. The Monster King certainly couldn’t have done that back on Terra in the invasion a decade prior. The gyaos hadn’t been the only one who’d gotten stronger recently it seemed. One passing thought trailed back to an evening before this fateful one, to an encounter back at the pier. Especially when she’d attacked alone initially.
-You really were holding back!-
The ice and hail fell, but no more attacks came in time to take advantage of the windedness of Aria’s defenders. Her own song had reached its fever pitch and rang true with a triumphant shout, the siren raising her hands skyward as the gravity well she’d amassed to contain her power inside at last exploded free. Her siren heart shone like a small star, glimmering with red brilliance at the love magic she’d poured into her effort, as she cast her spell in the climax of the ballad.
The mists began to part and a glimpse of a brightly colored group was offered.
====================
“Eventiiiiideee!? Twiiiiliiiiight?!"
The echoes of a familiar voice cut through the darkness and caused the former alicorn to pause. Evidently her friends had heard it as well as it was the first clear sign of someone beyond their group since they lost track of Sunset and had taken off after her. The Rainbooms skid to a stop and looked about, and thankfully didn’t have to look for long.
Aria Blaze, still clad in her gold and black form, almost seemed to be standing in a void amongst the darkness; light showing from behind her.
“It’s all part of the windigo; the mist and void is part of them! I don’t know how this all works but you are inside their mind or presence!" The siren cried out, cupping her hands as she tried to throw her voice to them more, “Where’s the red-haired one?”
“She ran off and now we can’t find her!" the substitute siren cried back to the real one, “It’s like running in place inside here, we move but don’t go anywhere!"
“These things tell physics to kill themselves, we had the same problem! Arh!" Aria winced at the sheer cold pushing against her, Notus’ southerly winds not appreciating the intrusion and trying to force the meddler back. Kaizer Aria grit her teeth and held fast to where she was, “Listen! They’re hurting all of us with their magic, misery, strife, and pain. So give them the opposite!You have had power that has scared them since you were kids!"
The winds roared stronger and the siren lost her foundations, forced back by the roaring gales as the dark void seemed to warp and distort, icy spires shooting up from the ground that forced the Rainbooms to jump back.
“They’re stronger together but so are all of you! Use what makes you worthy! Use Gloriosa’s gift! I’ll try and bust another hole and get you all out!" Aria Blaze was forced back into the misty but clearing space she’d been in prior, leaving the group alone in the cold and shadows.
A quiet moment passed over the group as they stood together, the frigid storm all around them with not a spark of Sunset Shimmer or anyone else in sight. Each girl slowly let their eyes drift to the Element crystal situated around their necks. In Twilight’s case she bore two, having had Sunset’s Element since Gloriosa entrusted it to her back at camp. The Element of Magic flickered in her hands, recognizing someone who fit the bill as a potential bearer. The Element she knew not of, in truth Empathy, stayed dim.
“W-We gotta get this to Sunset," Twilight said as she held the red crystal up to the group, “The magic is our one shot out of her and saving her and the others. We can’t let our friends fight these things alone…. Girls?”
She turned her head to look at them and the Rainbooms, younger-faced than their Equestrian counterparts, sunk back slightly. Fear stayed perched at the shoulder, and they could be hardly blamed. Fluttershy whimpered while clinging to Applejack to not look at the horrific surroundings; trying to forget the time she was also so frozen by all-surrounding cold as a child during the worst blizzard imaginable.
-"I never asked for any of this..."-
Twilight could see it all now. Notus’ influence whispered in the ear it gnawed at with frostbite. Even with some training, even with the knowledge they bore, they were still young. Their fears should have been on matters of grades, due dates, planning with family or friends, or on future careers; not fighting eldritch abominations from a bygone era and place. Rainbow Dash cringed while shuddering and trying her beck to grit her teeth and not show how the realm was getting to her, memories of being chased and terrified by Monster X all too palpable to mind as this place brought them forth.
-"Getting these powers just made me a target..."-
The southern winds blew by once again, dredging up all manner of malefic thoughts and memories. Rarity sniffled and tried her best to hide it, despite ugly lines of frozen water starting to crust around her eyes. The Fall Formal before Twilight's arrival and getting blindsided by yet another monster showing up to help X were clogging her vision. Twilight Sparkle's lips drooped and she felt a sting of horror at the realizations coming to her, egged on by Notus.
-"Every time I try to do something big for others, it always comes crashing back down. I'm useless."-
The enormity of the void within Notus seemed to crush them with span alone. Tears of fear seemed from the edges of frightened eyes. Applejack was trying to hold Fluttershy firm to give some support, but she was shaking from top to toe. Phantom pains of how the fight with Monster X broke her hand despite him evidently holding back.
-"I’m way out of my league..."-
Twilight Sparkle felt the cold grip tighter and tighter, squeezing at her heart. The whispers in her mind were clawing at consciousness on how she thought of the company of new Element Bearers.
-"They’re only here because of you…. You don’t even belong here, and you’ve put them in danger..."-
She saw them now, the Rainbooms. They were just them, just small, inexperienced teenagers. Teenagers with incomplete powers at best, missing both Pinkie Pie and Sunset Shimmer. Not the team that saved Equestria multiple times now, had been at their careers for years now, and had been chosen out of miraculous circumstance and the will to do good when Nightmare Moon returned. They were just four random girls she’d picked out of a crowd.
Twilight Sparkle strode forward into the darkness, her Element held in hand.
“Twi?” Applejack gasped breathlessly as cold winds blew past them all.
The former alicorn turned around and everyone’s shuddering fell still. Even clad in her over-the-top outfit of Eventide Hymn, face still powdered pale, hair dyed, and wearing platform shoes; recognition of a friend was obvious even when gazing on contact bearing eyes. She said no words, no rousing speech. She was actually crying because of what Notus had said in her voice in particular.
-"I dragged them all into this, forced them to be like the others. They are going to die because of it."-
It wasn’t true, entirely at least. She had seen them as just copies of her friends at first, a mistake hardly enough to blame for given the uncanny similarity between counterparts. But, she’d only be a fool if she stood around deriding herself or wallowing in doubts or fears that could drown her. Like a tiny star in an empty night sky, her element showed through her tight fingers; holding fast to herself like a lifeline. She held up Sunset’s own crystal with her free hand.
“Keep together and keep strong, Aria will be back for you all-"
Her magic pulsed through her Element and unnoticed to her, filtered into the group of understandably terrified teenagers. The cold seemed to ebb away slightly.
“A-And where are you going?!"
Nobody was initially able to tell who’d said it. After a quiet pause, it soon became obvious.Four hands clasped their own Elements of Harmony, four glimmers of a rainbow against the cold blackness. Four young heroines who’d strode forward. A glance at each other was passed between them, perhaps only mildly surprised both at the niggling whispers in their ears being cut off, and even less surprised their company had all advanced as one.
They’d known each other since kindergarten, seeing each other grow up, sharing stories about the heroic ‘Tree Angel’ that populated their childish stories and gossip. She was a legendary heroine, going up against that massive, dark storm. They were youths with barely a grasp on how just one of their powers worked, up against things she evidently couldn’t destroy and only fend off. Twilight had called her position a ‘Retainer’ once, someone to hold on and keep the Elements safe until the time was right.
“Ye’ think I’d be so dishonest as to walk away from a problem? Then-then you think again missy!" Applejack grunted as she adjusted her hat, a glimmer starting to spark across her body. Her gumption was returning, and it was like a positive feedback loop to assure the others for the same.
“What kind of Starscream do you take me for, bailing when I’m needed?” Rainbow Dash grinned as the echoes of wings started to appear across her back.
Rarity held her crystal between her closed eyes, sucking in a breath before opening them, purple light flickering over her eyes, “If you got a gift, you should share it. Didn’t your dear mentor teach you anything before she got shrunk?”
Yellow, almost golden wings of magic appeared from around the last of their party, curling around them all protectively as a shield against the cold and ice that melted in her presence, “Let’s beat these big dumb meanies!"
The generation the Retainers had been waiting for, young as they may be, had finally come.
Twilight Sparkle felt a tear, a warm one, well up in the corner of her eye. This wasn’t the team that she’d gone on adventure after adventure with across Equestria. This wasn’t the ace flyer, expert boutique owner, farmer of many orchards, and caregiver to beasts that pacified Discord. They were themselves… And just like the five that shared their faces and names, when a danger arose they’d risen to the challenge because it was the right thing to do; not by the beckon of someone forcing fate. The Elements didn’t fit them because of their counterparts alone, it fit them because they were who they were.
Twilight Sparkle smirked, tossing her crystal up and catching it with a swung hand. When she turned back around, a magical aura constructing wings and a horn had appeared on her form as all of the group transformed together. Sunset Shimmer’s Element glowed in her hand in the presence of its counterparts, its family, so overloaded with Harmony’s blessing. The ice and darkness was pushed back and the world seemed to shudder, the void was afraid.
“Now let’s go save everyone!"
==========
“Where do you think you’re going?!" Sunset Shimmer’s voice roared out, but the Bearer of the Element of Empathy wasn’t the one saying it. An echo from the past stomped forward as her modern self desperately limped forward to get herself and her mentor away from a monster the latter couldn’t see.
For now, Notus had seemingly given them a momentary reprieve, distracted by something else. But that only meant Sunset Shimmer’s pain migrated from the cut on her arm to the clenching inside her chest.
“To help my friend! What were you thinking back there?! Giving Sweetie Belle and her friends a breakdown all to get under Rarity’s skin?!" Flash Sentry whirled back around, guitar on his back, still in his Fall Formal attire, and sporting a quivering mess of a face that seemed contorting back and forth between pain, confusion, and rage.
“Well I had to up my game if she was going to step in on my turf. I only got the brat’s dress ruined along with her sister’s when Thimble Thumbs decided to get in my lane," the most punchable face imaginable was wearing her own body as Sunset Shimmer tried to look away, knowing everything that was coming.
Celestia, finally able to see something that was going on, pulled back on her student’s attempts to drag her off. Sunset being stopped in her tracks by the sights around her helped. The alicorn knew enough to trust this street they were in was most certainly not back in town. They were still in the twisted realm the windigo had dragged them all into, but solid ground at least gave her the footing to rip her sleeve and try to bind the cut across Sunset’s arm.
“Sunset wh--e is this? -hen is thi-” her voice was getting distorted, like she was being put out of focus. Perhaps so, given the world was increasingly demanding her attention.
“What were you doing, traitor?!"
“W-What? I didn’t do anything wrong-" Flash stammered as he tried to put his guitar down, “What are you on about?!"
The past Shimmer jabbed her pointed nail into his collar and glared at her boyfriend’s eyes, spitting venom, “I know enough! You didn’t stop going near her and her group when I asked you to! You didn’t stop talking to them like I asked you to! You went around and kept sneaking off to meet with that scheming little-"
“Her name is Rarity! RARE-I-TY! And you didn’t ask me, you told me! Sunny I’ve been friends with them since I was a kid, there was nothing going on there!" Flash gasped, pain overtaking his straining features as cold sweet seeped from his brow, “You know me, you know I wouldn’t do that-"
“I know enough, Sentry," Sunset of the past snarled as she yanked on his tie to equalize their height, “I know all the times you kept sneaking off! What were you doing?!"
The present, the real Sunset Shimmer quivered; Celestia feeling the tremor going through her body. The solar alicorn heard the whimper and could see the tears even before looking up at her pupil’s face.
The past Sunset sneered and fidgeted her lip, almost on the edge of a sad or angered outburst; which was impossible to say with the unique type of pain she was having.
“What were you going off doing around them?!" her spite and yet, in some way, desperation was obvious in her tone. There was a possibility she was very much not wanting to hear and sought to dismiss as fast as possible.
Flash was visibly grasping for words, jaw half opened and whimpering noises seeping out from his throat; eyes darting back and forth for some means of articulation. His eyes shut and his forehead lowered.
“I was trying to help her stop you..."
A passing silence threatened to strangle the modern day Sunset Shimmer, frigidness settling in. The wound on her arm made by the windigo’s claws stabbed with icy pain that seemed to race up into her head. It was unknown to her that contact there was permitting Notus access to a particularly painful memory both she and his host, Flash Sentry, shared. Notus was kept at bay from looking at the happy recollections, so he’d sought one of the worst.
“Wh-Y-ou- YOU?!" her eyes contracted into tiny points as her lips curled backwards.
The glint of the Fall Formal award and sound of the distant party spurred on Flash Sentry’s growing strain, venging on breakdown, “Is this all worth it? Is it really worth it, Sunset? Was whatever happened on the other side of that statue so bad as to do this?!"
The past Sunset’s face contorted like it was a reflection in a glass mirror that had just cracked. Breathing short and panted, her eyes twitching out of synch while hairs raised on goosebumps.
“... H-....” her breath slid out of her lips with a wheeze, wavering back and forth on a threat that seemed tightened to the snapping point, “How did you know?”
Flash Sentry, cold sweet messing his bangs and another dampness edging his eyes, threw his arms up into the air, “Big flash of light in front of a statue so old nobody knows where it came from, and I find you in front of it!"
He flicked up one finger after another, having kept count all these years, “No records, no family, no schooling, yet you ace almost every subject except history and handwriting, you kept trying to walk on all fours for a month, I saw a fairy as a kid so I know crazy stuff exists out there, you looked at everyone like they were something you hadn’t seen before, you didn’t know what a car or computer was in this day and age, and oh yeah-"
He motioned to his face with pointed fingers, redness taking over his skin, “I got working eyeballs and was around you the most! I’ve!-"
He clenched his jaw and swallowed his tongue to keep from screaming out, the barest of self control he could give at the moment of high emotions, “... I’ve known you weren't human for a while, I just didn’t think you’d stop being a person.”
Princess Celestia’s eyes widened in tandem with Sunset’s past sense. This was a tense situation and usually she wouldn’t want to risk someone dwelling on the past, few knew how self destructive or distracting that could be than herself. But with the gravity of how this was impacting Sunset, she had to know more. The shortened alicorn looked between the echoes of the past and her own student, the real Sunset Shimmer’s eyes shadowing her eyes; frost beginning to ice over her cheeks. Celestia was forced to look at the scene once again when a gale of southern winds smashed into them so hard they almost stumbled.
In manner, the past Sunset Shimmer resembled her modern self. Head dipped down as to cover his eyes, still as a statue, and yet clearly with so much thought racing through her mind.
“How long..." she whispered, the first time in the night that her cracking voice dropped to such a level.
Flash shrank back slightly and unconsciously, the past and present Sunset Shimmer stepped forward. He seemed to struggle with words for a time, shuddering from the very air in his chest trying to force itself out.
“... I figured something was up just a few weeks after you first showed up to be sure.. I knew something was up long before you started acting like this," a droplet of a tear pinged off Sentry’s shoes, voice muffled from choking on his own heart.
Sunset Shimmer was much the same. Had she a calmer mind she might have even taken the revelation happily. This young man had originally been just a means to an end, a way to get used to new circumstances quicker with a guide and settle herself in while drawing up a plan. She was alone, had thought the last bridge she had with Celestia and Cadance firmly burned, and in a strange new world. Much as her old, prideful self was remiss to admit it when she first saw that human looming over her after fumbling out of the portal, she’d needed help.
“Sunset.. This has to stop.. All of it," Flash muttered before gulping a breath to clear his shaking throat, “No more of this."
What he was meaning with ‘this has to stop’ was in regard to her actions and character as an unrepentant bully. The dread and regret coming off him even then was palpable in every quiver or huff in his breath, how he felt so strongly that he should have tried to rein her in earlier instead of standing by and later conspiring to take her down a peg. Maybe it was some tiny prelude to her empathic abilities that made her sense that regret coming from him, as her present self could now; or more likely it was just an otherwise little used expression of magicless empathy that told the past Sunset Shimmer how regretful and ashamed he was.
And her past sense completely misread the reason for that shame; and when coupled with the gnawing fit of jealousy of seeing someone who was hers lingering around an enemy, with the reeling shock of finding out he’d known she wasn’t human for years… a stretched thin cord within her mind snapped like an overly tight thread.
It all happened so fast, Celestia felt she could blink and missed it entirely. One moment her past protege and her significant other were standing apart. The next, Flash Sentry had his face cocked to the side with the past Sunset’s opened hand still extended past his shoulder. A red mark in the shape of a hand rapidly began to form across the young man’s face.
Flash Sentry was still and silent, only Sunset Shimmer had any motion after a chilled minute. She, wide eyed, turned her head to look at her hand so slowly it was like her neck bones creaked. Just as Flash’s face flushed with a stinging red more and more by the second, hers was awash with paleness and cold. It took almost an eternity to look back at her boyfriend.
Eyes locked, the snapped halves of the red string curled within both.
Flash Sentry’s mind was awash with so much. Registering what had just happened, as his fingertips lightly caressed the red, raw skin on his cheek. His articulate mind demanded he say something back. A more instinctive one almost demanded he give like to like. A tear rolled down his cheek, lips tightened into a tiny frown. A red boutonnière flower, meant for the crowned Princess of the Fall Formal’s date, shivered in the wind. It was the last detail Sunset Shimmer saw as a frowning Flash Sentry turned and walked away. Not to go find his old friends, not to return to the party; just to go home.
Sunset couldn’t see Celestia anymore, the void around her had closed in once again and she was totally alone. The flickering of Sunset Shimmer’s gifted boutonnière was the only thing the Fall Formal princess could see for what felt like an hour. A teardrop hit her heeled shoes, and the outburst was an ugly one. An aimless, painful wrath was screamed into the night.
The image of the old Sunset Shimmer froze as her modern self walked up in front of her. Eyes bloodshot, face messy with sweat, tears, and mucus; she heaved at the image of her old self. The wrathful witch that would only crank up her cruelty to others in the year to come, split apart the group of friends which dared go against her, and concoct a plan to enact revenge upon those back home she thought were denying her destiny.
Southern, chilly wind contrasted with the burning hatred Sunset had for her old self.
-"I could have had it all."-
The image of the smacked Flash Sentry, the sobbing Rarity, and morose Element Bearers tormented the current Bearer of Empathy’s mind; and she could practically feel all of them. The now unseen Celestia might have cried out something but Sunset couldn’t hear her, isolation taking away that sense too. Her mentor tried to help. One moment she was trying to run to her apprentice, the next… she was lost in the storm that consumed everything. Sunset Shimmer, the failure and architect of her own ruin as well as others, was alone.
-"Friends to stand beside you, a mentor that approved of me, even an understanding significant other who knew what I wasn't and didn’t care..."-
Sunset Shimmer clutched at her chest, practically feeling like she’d been run through. Her lips quivered and curled, hatred festering in her eyes at the being in front of her.
The past fell away like melting ice, reforming into a time far closer. The next Fall Formal. Surprisingly, the focus was not on the raging, cackling She-Demon poised to wreak havoc with power not her own if left unchecked. The force engendering these visions didn’t want this meddlesome Sunset Shimmer to see her defeat and opening to redemption. For this wasn’t Flash Sentry’s memory they were drawing upon anymore.
The echoes of the cackling demon were carried north, bolstered by pained whimpers and whispers of five teenage girls who’d been tormented and torn apart in the year prior to Twilight Sparkle’s arrival. The world was cold, empty, a void yet somehow filled with every negative emotion or thought one could possibly imagine. Sunset Shimmer felt the enormity of a mind hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years old. Cognisant, intelligent; and yet somehow not fully sapient; with anything resembling a positive emotion or experience being totally alien to the mind forcing a connection to her own.
The dark magic she’d unleashed, coupled with the misery she’d inflicted on the Bearers and initial strife the sirens engendered, flew into the frozen north far beyond any sight. To a place three demons from a bygone time had been reduced and imprisoned ever since a Legend of the Everfree defeated them.
“N-No… I-I didn’t-"
The strife and malice was absorbed, replenishing. The north, south, and western winds howled into the dark night.
-"They’re out thanks to me..."-
The frozen maw of the eldritch horror that swallowed them all up on the rooftop. The image of her friends, crying frozen tears, flickered along with the cackles of a she-demon and roar of cold winds. Sunset Shimmer crumbled to her knees, holding her head as the sights wouldn’t leave her. Ice started to crawl up her body, trying to freeze her in place as it was seeking her heart. The empty slot for the Element of Empathy started to dim. The realization of what she’d unknowingly unleashed, the painful memory of losing the first meaningful relationship she’d gotten here, it was overcoming her.
-".. Ever since I came here I’ve only brought dread… Now I’ve brought death."-
The voice wasn’t her own, but the frigid form battering her with southern gales was a perfect emulation of her demonic form. Notus sneered as he prepared to fully get this nuisance out of the way so he could get back to dealing with the… abomination Harmony had birthed. The fact she bore the same Element as that wretched Retainer was an unsightly resemblance he didn’t wish to witness any longer. That hunt had been denied, but this one was primed.
“Sunset!"
The distant call was barely perceptible, yet close. It grabbed her attention instantly.
“Sunset Shimmer!"
She knew that voice… somehow, without ever having heard it herself. The South Winds shrieked in rage, recognizing the echoes of an old enemy they tried to smother out. But the voice’s aftermath yet remained. It almost seemed to be coming from… Sunset Shimmer’s eyes trailed to the tiny flicker of a red glow on her neck. Someone tied to that Element was trying to call out to her. And the light was a beacon for someone else. In the distance, a multi-colored light flickered, as a group of even brighter lights headed for it and then her.
“Girls! She’s this way! I lost her but she’s this way!”
”Celestia!? We’re coming! Sunset hang on!"
Those voices were different, it was from this realm and not the beyond. Ice began to crawl up the sides of her cheeks, but the near broken unicorn turned girl paused and perked up despite the cold. It was the faintest of tangibility, but a tiny thread of warmth penetrated the cold winds. It felt like a great effort to lift her head, Sunset practically feeling the bones in her neck grind together as ice on her skin split and fractured from the movement.
There were several lights shown in the distance, growing brighter and brighter with a tedious but unyielding advance. Her friends charged forward through what seemed to be a hailstorm, with freezing waves constantly crashing into their group.Whether by increased proximity or the reactions of the Elements themselves, Sunset couldn’t just see them; she could feel them.
Kindness glowed like a beacon as bright wings beat against the cold storm, glowing feathers battling the cold grimness to clear a path for the remaining group. Brave little Fluttershy cried out to her compatriots while facing down the storm of strife. The world bent away from the darkness for an instant, recompiling into the sight of a chilly winter carnival where Sunset Shimmer’s point of view approached a lost looking individual amidst the crowds.
Generosity flared, with a grim bulwark of jagged ice spikes that burst from the ground trying to hold back the advance letting out a loud crash as they smashed into a barrier shield cast in the shape of a gemstone. Rarity jumped from the group and shoved back another wave that tried to slam into them. World around Sunset’s sight and mental space showed not the cold, dark void; but pleasant evening at her own residence, opened up to house a group of scared friends for a slumber party to lift their spirits in the aftermath of Monster X's threatening Rainbow. Pillows and blankets strewn about in an arrangement that kept up right until this very day.
Honesty burning bright as a cocked fist flew free to shatter a wall of frost that impeded them, Applejack jumping out of the speeding group to drop kick another; valiantly falling behind the group in order to hold back more frigid waves that tried to chase them down. The point of view in the grim realm flickered again, now the sight Sunset bore was from her own two eyes on a more recent day. This one showed her herself before her very friends coming to try and save her, standing with Irys’ necklace in her hand and a confession in her voice. And moreover, how those same friends piled forth to embrace her along with her beloved mentor, when she'd been expecting scorn for telling an uncomfortable truth she once hid.
Loyalty shone like a star as Rainbow Dash sprinted against the storm’s influence, pumping her legs as fast as she could while holding onto her remaining friends. A dim glow appeared next to them, hidden by the haze initially but growing brighter. Someone lost in the storm had seen the Elements and ran to them; and now ran to her student. Rainbow immediately noticed it and grinned, diving to grab onto the outstretched hand. With a spin for momentum, as Notus’ storm crashed into them with intensified force, she cast the two remaining lights ahead. The world around her became a jovial scene, one of the Rainbooms practicing in their room with their newest member in a beautiful chorus. They were all smiling, they and another. Sunset hadn’t noticed how much Flash was smiling at seeing her join in, how naturally she fit with the group that should have been her friends for years.
Friends who helped her see just how worthy she really was, even when she doubted it most.
The remaining two lanterns clasped hands, thrown forward by Rainbow Dash’s momentum and the others’ efforts to hold back Notus’ warping. Within their grip, two Elements were born. One could see the flicker of magical horns and wings on both as Magic flared to brilliance like a lighthouse in the night. The melody of a song and the sight of being on stage, singing with Twilight Sparkle as Eventide Hymn and soon after Adagio Dazzle as well, blocked the dark influence from the windigo’s whisper.
And through it all, even the incomplete essence of Laughter made her feel the cheer and good will of the adoring crowds and even more jubilant performers. The glee at seeing her reformed former foe as an Element Bearer was a beacon in the disguised Twilight’s heart so bright it warmed to even the isolationist Adagio.
Twilight Sparkle and Celestia flew forward and extended their hands, bringing forth a glimmering red Element. The moment it touched Sunset Shimmer, the voice from before at last returned. It sounded similar to Gloriosa’s. She could almost see a hand pushing the Element into her grasp.
-"Sunset Shimmer, you have been through much and learned even more. Your past does not define you, and you are capable of showing great Empathy."-
Despite her sullenness, despite how beaten down she’d been, in spite of herself or rather because of others; Sunset Shimmer’s hand met theirs to accept her lot in life.
Nothing, that was all Sunset could see or hear for a moment after the Element of Empathy. All she could sense was a tactile warmth flowing over her body; like what happened when their magic flared up while using music to focus it. Only this was much stronger. There was a presence she could detect, one wrapped over her body like in an embrace, that was keeping every speck of influence from the windigo away. With a clear mind and a tether to all her friends for stability, Sunset Shimmer was at least able to see things as they were.
The cuts across her arm where she’d thought she’d seen jagged claws was indeed a cut, but only a shallow graze and a very thin, clean one at that. Even without first hand experience, she knew it to be a knife wound. Her foot tapped familiarity with a step. While she saw the same horrific, churning, stormy, dark void of grim blackness and frost, her shoe felt the same old grit and friction of concrete. The exact type that had been on the parking garage’s top floor they’d all met at; the exact spot she’d been standing at.
-The cold, the memories, the storm… It was… all an illusion? Like some kind of waking nightmare to mask what was going on?-
She blinked and closed her eyes, focusing intently as the Element in her grasp flared. She could feel them, the other Bearers and Celestia. And she could feel someone else, someone familiar. The mists returned again and tried to block her way, but her advance couldn’t be impeded. Getting close to the haze only parted it without touch, like there was an aura around her that the windigo’s magic couldn’t breach. She walked, and then she ran.
Sunset Shimmer didn’t need to look around to where she was running to, she could feel him with her power. Passing a relieved but bewildered Rainbow Dash and Applejack through the storm, she saw what she’d been expecting to see as Rarity and Fluttershy came running up to rejoin them.
Twilight Sparkle was busy helping Celestia up to her feet, backs turned and not seeing the figure behind them. Flash Sentry was sobbing and twitching. His frosted form and frozen eyes indicated Notus was still in control, but that stubborn ember within remained and was fighting back with every feeble effort he could manage. The hunter windigo practically had to drag his feet and crawl towards his prey, knife in hand and poised to try and lunge out.
Sunset Shimmer leaped past the two alicorns and all but tackled her possessed ex, her powers flairing to life at the contact. She caught a glimpse of a decrepit, emaciated, half frozen form of Flash’s inner self; surrounded by frost with a tiny ember still clutched to his chest.
A cascade of memories, old and new flooded the world around them both. Not of the dreadful recollections Notus forced them both to see, but of the very thing the windigo couldn’t comprehend. A laughing tyke on the playground with five of his friends. The moment a young boy showed courage hanging off the side of a cliff and an angel came to his rescue. A guitar lesson in which his hands unwittingly overlaid the redheaded unicorn-turned-girl he was teaching. And beaming at someone who’d turned her life around to fight for a just cause with powers beyond his knowledge or grasp.
“You said to this thing, ‘I’m not important’... We both know that’s a lie," Sunset Shimmer whispered as she looked at his inner self, pushing aside all that self doubt and deprecation he heaped onto himself, “I learned my worth from my friends, and I really did see you as more than that once."
The almost corpse-like representation of Flash Sentry’s consciousness that had been fighting against Notus’ control all this time finally moved. His head lifted up to look at her, and he smiled as a joyous tear ran down his cheek.
The south wind shrieked in agony as the emotions flooded through his host’s body, activated by the empathic synchronization of his and Sunset Shimmer’s hearts.
The fog lifted and they were all back on the rooftop, Sunset Shimmer on her knees and holding Notus’ knelt body still in an embrace.
“Huh, cute make-up session. Thanks for the boost, will make up for this being a solo act," Gravity distorted the moment the line of sight became clear.
Red mists emanating off Sunset and Flash’s bodies fed into a gleaming gemstone, as golden light crackled across Aria Blaze’s eyes. Kaizer Aria smirked as Notus inwardly sneered.
The melodic song she let loose, focused by the graviton control, surged into both Flash and Sunset Shimmer’s bodies harmlessly. More and more red mist billowed out and surrounded them, creating something toxic to the monstrosity of Grogar’s making. Between the eminence of love and surge of Hymnia’s song, it was too much for the spent windigo. Flash Sentry’s body convulsed and his head shot skyward. The southern winds roared and a horrific spectre departed Flash Sentry’s body. It morphed and changed every moment as it rose into the air above the parking garage, growing in size until it was virtually the size of the building itself. Sometimes it looked like a human, sometimes equine, sometimes like a frostbitten corpse of both and then nothing at all describable.
It roared with gnashing teeth, all tact and focus of the hunter lost. It saw them all. The direct progeny of the most despised Harmony, the ruination of the Third Era being the cause of Notus’ own creation. The spawn of his counterpart Boreas, turning the powers he’d forced into her mother against her uncle and played to the melody of Hymnia’s defiant love. Bearers that incarnated Harmony’s principles Notus only existed to destroy. Meddlers from another world that had denied his hunts and vengeance.
And the only one of those Harmony’s chosen he’d bothered to learn by name. Cold, dead eyes locked onto Sunset Shimmer’s form as she cradled Flash Sentry’s body to herself. She didn’t look back with fear. Notus’ form seemed to degrade and melt in multiple places. As close to a definition as one could apply to such an entity, he was dying.
Seemingly contrary to his own status, the windigo let out a deafening shriek that sounded of a blizzard. Cold winds tore out of his body, opening up holes as strong winds carried some malefic magic away towards the south. Even with half his form torn apart, Notus never stopped glaring at the most hated name he’d ever known. It was one thing to have a plot foiled by a goddess, likewise to be impeded by a titan from another world. It was another matter entirely for some insignificant failure of a mortal to grace Grogar’s principles and turn away from them because of others showing her Harmony’s way.
“D̶d̴d̵D̷A̴a̶a̸a̸A̸A̸M̸N̷ ̶Y̸O̴U̷!" The voice, finally his own, roared as southern gales ripped across the sky, “S̵S̴s̸S̷S̴U̸N̸S̶E̸e̴e̸E̴E̴t̴T̶ ̴S̷S̷H̵I̶I̸I̷M̴M̷M̴E̸E̸E̸E̷e̵e̸E̸E̸E̸E̶R̷!"
The windigo lunged down, broken and frostbitten jaws parting to try and swallow the Element of Empathy whole in one last act of spite.
Twilight Sparkle cried out over the storm as the others rallied to her around their comrade. Each of the Rainbooms linked hands one by one after Twilight put her hand on Sunset Shimmer’s shoulder. Celestia’s own hand graced the other shoulder and linked arms with Applejack.
Each Element linked together in a tether, each bearer overtaken by the brilliance as white light beamed through their eyes.
Twilight roared as Notus continued to surge down like an avalanche, “LIGHT EM UP!"
Sunset Shimmer continued to hold Flash, continued to stare back defiantly at damnation as the bright light appeared across her own eyes and Element. She didn’t come to this world deserving of such a role, she’d earned it.
A rainbow burst free from the group and slammed into the windigo. He shrieked, he split, and the nightmare from long ago shattered. Notus, the southern wind, was destroyed.
===============
Megalon’s head was still spinning from the explosion, only vaguely aware he was being pulled free of the tunnels. His entire body ached, stings of frayed nerves and destroyed metal present in his arm and palpable on his dented chest.
He groggily tried to articulate something, only to be gently shushed by a finger on his lips. The static and fizz in his vision started to lift, enough for half of it to return enough to see Gloriosa Daisy and Pinkie Pie laying him down on the ground. The camp director was trying to get his sleeve rolled up to attend to any bleeding and char, the latter had little tears trickle from her eyes as she held his head in place; or else he hurt his neck bending it badly. For the moment her hair was slicked down and straight, but it perked up when someone said something and she looked up. Megalon still couldn’t hear anything, ears ringing from the explosion.
Pinkie Pie leaned back to make room as another figure stood over the downed cyborg. The battered cyborg couldn’t see precisely, his vision was getting blurry again and fizzling in and out.
She looked at the burning Mess Hall, the campground, the two she’d come across shortly after hearing the explosion, and had put two and two together even before being told of the Nebulan’s valiant defense of the two against their enemy. It was hard to think that the destructive attack dog that had joined in on the Final Wars assault had done all this for such a cause. Some neggling side of her mind she’d let control her actions too much lately decried it as a trick or circumstance; but she promptly shut that influence from her father’s side out. Her mother’s side saw the courage and benevolence, and smiled upon seeing it come from such an unlikely source.
Mothra Lea knelt beside Megalon and clasped her hands together to create an aura field.
-I had come here to heal, but it appears fate decided to send me here to do more.-
Megalon’s hearing finally came back when his shattered eardrums were mended back together, his tensity eased by the warmth emanating across his body.
“You did well."