//------------------------------// // Chapter 52: Australis // Story: The Bridge: A Godzilla-MLP Crossover // by Tarbtano //------------------------------// The celebration of that ancient horror's destruction was not at all unearned, let alone the exhaustion so many of them felt on that rooftop after surviving their ordeal. But celebration, outside of morale fostering internal jubilation, would have to wait. There was still another windigo not far away, Adagio and Gigan were still missing in action, and they had wounded. Sunset Shimmer especially had the latter on her mind as she tightly held a limping Flash Sentry to her. The young man was shivering constantly, still damp from the dark magic ice that had been festering across his body only very recently melting. Thankfully none of the horrid thoughts such grim magicks might engender were brought forth, likely a welcome side effect of the windigo that made them being destroyed and his proximity to so many benign sources of magic to counteract it. That still didn't change a nagging sense of horror the young unicorn-turned-woman had at the realization Flash had been possessed by a horrid frost demon for Celestia-knew how long. "Can't believe we didn't notice, how could we have been so-o stupid we-" His shivering, clammy hand connected to the arm Sunset had put around her shoulder for stability had tightened its grip on her own. She was only now noticing their fingers had interlocked. "S-Sunset, I was conscious-... the whole time," Flash whispered with plenty of understandable fatigue in his tone, still looking very worse for the wear with sunken eyes and pale skin. He often needed a breath or two between words, and the fact he was talking at all was taking an appreciable toll that he was willfully braving, "It took.. over... a bit after the concert. You all had... plenty to worry wi-ith. Meeting and meet-up to get Twi-light back, and it didn't want to get close." He weakly chuckled as Sunset Shimmer set him down in an open seat within the van, picking up a spare shirt to dab away the cold sweat on his brow, "T-Told you-.. I'm not important-" “You better no flippin’ finish that!” Sunset Shimmer shushed his lips with a finger, "You don't need a pretty magic rock to tell you you're important Flashy." Flash Sentry just laughed a bit, not disagreeing but not fighting her either. He knew when she got like this, how stubborn she could be. "Listen, we're gonna get you to... I-I don't know, a hospital and then-" Flash just made inarticulate grumbling noises approximating that of dismissive grunts as he shook his head a bit limply, "Su-Sunset... you're fretting again. I-.. will be o-kay..." He nodded along to his own words, chin flopping against his collar, "O-Kay... Just going to rest. You need to be with the others and put a stop to those things!" He was going to say more but stopped and shivered despite himself at the lingering cold. Sunset Shimmer didn't even need to think before removing her jacket and putting it across his shoulders. The added heat and her getting close as to put it on him helped banish away lingering chills. "Giving me your jacket? A-Aren't I supposed to be the one to do this, Sunnybeam?" "Oh cut the chivalry!" Sunset quipped, lightly tapping him on the forehead, "You're the one who... Did you just call me-" A tiny smile peaked across his tired, chapped lips, "... I've been waiting to call you that for a long time." 'Sunnybeam', a dopey nickname coined years ago; about a year or so after her first arrival. That made it about a few months into them starting to court-er-.. date. -That meant it was already over a year that he'd already known I wasn't human... And didn't care.- Sunset Shimmer looked him in the eyes as a worried but calm smile curled her lips. She got on his level, one hand moving to check his cheek temperature as the other kept hold of his own. Unconsciously their fingers started to rub at the other, just as it was for her to cup the cheek after confirming he was getting a hint of heat back in them. The admiration, honest pride, and almost reverence was so obvious across the glowing glimmer in Sentry's eyes she didn't even need her powers and an empathy bond to feel it. But the massive surge of empathic power she'd gotten to feel from him upon using it to expel Notus was not forgotten. Sunset Shimmer couldn't help but divert her gaze for the briefest of moments and bite her lip, privy to how certain thoughts on certain topics flew about. She looked back at something Flash had seemed to notice given the shift in his eye. Looking back she saw the now familiar face of Eventide Hymn conversing with Aria, Celestia, and Godzilla. The false siren, true Element Bearer, looked at him, then to Sunset, and nudged Celestia to whisper something to her. The transformed alicorn needed only a fleeting glance that showed the barest hint of a wide grin on her face for it to spread to Twilight's. Flash Sentry relaxed and closed his eyes just as Twilight gave Sunset a thumbs-up she knew the context to. Noticing Flash had closed off his vision, Sunset did give him a tiny nudge to ensure he was aware. "Soooo .. about Twilight..." Sunset muttered whilst rubbing the back of her head. Sentry smiled pleasantly as he could but only nodded slightly, "I helped her as I could and danced with her, l-liked her well enough.... Buuut..." "But what?" "Sunnybeam, you got more to w-worry about," Flash whined ineffectively with a humored chuckle. "Thanks for the vote of confidence! One down, two to go," Sunset shrugged while trying to downplay the threat faced to them to more than just her company. Her hand squeezed his a bit tighter and Flash seemed like he was about to say something, something important. It was on the tip of his tongue and his lips parted just enough to start a first syllable that never came. Silence passed between them instead, just sitting together, holding hands, sharing company. It was a jarring contrast to the last months of Sunset trying to make good with the Rainbooms and Flash not being able to choose between relief, pride, and anxiety that she'd relapse and he'd have to protect his friends as he once failed to. Fear against reality was a plague before even the windigos showed up. "You can beat 'em," Flash whispered with no hesitance or weakness in his tone like there had been. Confidence was omnipresent. Sunset Shimmer sighed and nodded as good as she could, pointing her thumb back at the unlikely group, "Well with the company I keep these days! Ehehe..." Sentry just beamed at her, stronger than he had in a good long while. In over a year in fact. A thought came to him and he picked himself up as best as he could. "L-listen... we'll have a lot to sort out and talk through but... These things hate good vibes right?" "Yyyeeeah, seems to be the jist of it. Aria Blaze said some of our..." she felt her cheeks heat up and almost could detect her absent pony-ears flop in embarrassment, "... Feelings, gave her a boost." "Then... there is one thing I can do to help you." He moved forward, slow enough she clearly got his offered intent well ahead of time to react on her own wishes. She could accept the hug he was offering, or go for more. She took the second option and their lips touched. He was still a bit cold, had chapped lips, and they both stunk of cold sweat; but she could feel the sparks flying. Fingers knit together as her arm pulled him in closer and he weakly, but happily held on. It only needed to last a few moments, but lasted instead a bit longer. Both pulled away feeling a familiar red string once broken, finally starting to possibly knit itself back together. Sunset Shimmer sighed, stroking his cheek before playfully ruffling Flash's hair, "We'll work things out after, promise?" Flash Sentry chuckled, leaning in and brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes, "Deal..... Now... go help save the world." Sunset giggled, giving him a quick peck on the forehead before Flash leaned back to get some much needed rest. When she turned to return to the group… she made it three steps before having to resist the urge to let out a loud, happy whinny upon jumping up and clicking her heels together. ============== Awareness was a surreal comprehension to make. If one described it as being awake with all of one’s senses giving them input as to where they are and what is going on, then he was not aware nor awake. This space had length, width, height, and seemingly plenty of other things. Like a void so bright it hurt one’s eyes, yet there was no true light as there was no shading or shadow. He’d been walking, yet his feet didn’t seem to actually touch any ground and there was no air moving past; it actually felt as if there wasn’t anything around him at all. Perception was almost based more on feeling than actual location and stimuli. And he could perceive something else or rather someone else was there with him. He felt the sadness, through chiefly agony, regrets, and terror. It was before him but wasn’t given off by him. It was by another whom he approached, as best as one could in a space like this. What he saw before him wasn’t truly sight, just the concept of something given shape in a way a mind could interpret it. Interpret the sadness as tears, the fright as a small and vulnerable body. A scared, crying little girl huddled with her knees to her chest and holding her legs as tight as she could; laying on her side with her back to him. She whimpered, sniffed, and sobbed; weak, pathetic, and trying to be as small as she possibly could be. He crouched down beside her, unsure of himself for a time before just stopping short of reaching out to her. His hand was left dangling in the air, still as a statue upon some representation of her words being made audible. “All my fault-“ she whined with a heart wrenching sob causing her to convulse, “It’s all my fault…” He knew exactly who she was. Twilight Starla Sparkle, the native one to this world. The tool the windigos used to catalyze this scheme of theirs. There was even more of her here than he was. Glancing at his midsection, he could perceive another reminder this wasn’t the physical world and how over half of his stomach and chunks of his arms and legs were missing, their endpoints marked by wisps of ethereal magic. And yet despite being incomplete he was still held together. Perhaps it was some sort of representation of how much had been pulled out of his mind, a way of comprehending the intangible existence of memory. Most of his consciousness wasn’t here, only about half. Yes there were only a few pieces and bits of Twilight absent and smoking. Almost her entire existence had been wrenched out of her body. She was almost entirely here, somehow fully conscious and aware. And evidently very much aware of what she had helped unleash. His hand balled to a fist. He wasn’t even fully able to remember why, not with his mind split, but Monster X remembered his loathing for this one. For all she’d done, for all she’d no doubt judged in arrogance or ignorance and acted upon. He wanted to strike, and his fist cocked back slowly. Her sobbing, incomprehensible and unintelligible mutterings of sorrow and grief bring through the air. X closed his eyes and sighed, contemplating while listening to it all. He couldn’t remember much, exactly what all had happened, who he was with, or how things were the way they were. But he could remember at least some of himself. Which meant wherever the rest of his mind was, in his body or elsewhere, it would hopefully remember too. His fist opened back up and gently touched Twilight’s shoulder. She quivered at the contact but turned around. Her face was marred in sorrow and grief, ugly tears and sweat streaming down a face that was almost entirely complete save for a missing eye socket that billowed smoke. He knew exactly who he was looking at, but also exactly what he was looking at. This world’s Twilight was a good deal younger than the one he vaguely recalled knowing. X put his other hand atop her head, and she gawked for only a moment before collapsing forward. She burrowed into his space, sobbing, and desperately clinging to any company she could have to keep some of the horrible visions away. Through the muffled sobbing, he managed to pick out three words in her sputtering. “I’m sorry- I’m so sorry-y-y!” she gagged on her cries and shook all over. Monster X blinked before looking down at one he thought once of as an enemy, only seeing a scared, harmless, agonized little girl full of regret. He sighed, embracing, and patting her back for what very well might have been hours. Perception of time was all kinds of nonsensical in this void, but he could at least check some gauging of passage in progress. She started out totally inconsolable, but it seemed like grief could only burn so strongly for so long before the mind burned out just like the body would. And when she finally ran out of steam, ran out of tears, she whispered. “I-remember…” “What do you remember?” X muttered back, still putting aside retribution to do what was right, just as he did back in another life on another planet. “I- I…” she cringed from pains within and held her face. Zephyrus had appeared to her many times, ever since last fall. Every time he physically manifested in some tangible form, he might look a bit different but there was still a sense of ethereal nobility or calm. A small animal, an elven spirit with a crown of antlers, or sometimes as animated, visible air currents carrying his trademark western winds and a gentle voice. Now she couldn’t banish the memory of his true self, or the closest thing something like him might have to one. Eyes drooling black ichor from empty sockets, gaunt limbs with frostbitten skin, that cavity of a chest ringed with icy shards like a gaping maw; and all the amorphous mass that otherwise comprised a form that mutilated the mind to comprehend. She clung to X tighter and tried to focus entirely on his presence to at least give her mind something else to focus upon. “I know their plans…” ============== In a forested locale just outside of town, the sixth flash of red glimmered just within the tree line. A brilliant flare before unceremoniously depositing two forms tangled up in a heap of each other’s limbs. Adagio grumbled as she was the first to rise, trying to shake away the nausea distorting her consciousness while frantically looking about to try and get her bearings and confirm if the horrific monster she had felt a split second before getting grabbed was still with them. Thankfully no frost demons were in sight. “Where are we?! What have you done!” “Emergency fallba-a-a-a-“ Gigan thwacked himself on the chest and sparked, “Fallback. We were attacked and there was no time to enact countermeasures, so the fall back was to clear space. I set it to Camp Everfree so we’re somewhere between here and there.” “Somewhere?! somewhere?! You idiot!” Adagio grabbed him by his collar and shook the cyborg a few times, “We just got attacked by a windigo, my cousin and podmates are still around a windigo! And you go running off with your tail between your legs?!” Gigan’s mechanical eyes contracted behind his sunglasses and he pursed his lips with a grumble, “I was only trying to back up to get out of the way of whatever attack they were launching! I didn’t mean to keep warping!” “Oh I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of you ditching everyone!” “It was an accident!” Gigan snapped, looking aside and pulling up some diagnostics that had plenty of error codes coming from his warp drive, “I’m still damaged from the fight with Godzilla. My safeties thought I was more hurt than I was and kept going!” Adagio hadn’t let go of him, yanking him closer to her furious visage so much their foreheads banged together. To her credit, she took getting conked on the head with a metallic skull without flinching, “While I didn’t ask to be included in you glitching out! Bring us back there, Aria and Eventide need me; let alone your teammate will need us!” “I know!” Gigan huffed as he gripped her shoulders and tried to push the siren back despite some impulse to hold on to her. He tried to rev up his warp drive again but it sputtered out, sparks ejecting from his mid-back. “Grahk! Piece of scrap!” Gigan snarled as he tried again, only for his limbs momentarily his limbs lock up and spark again, “I wouldn’t be running on a jury-rig if you and Tentacle Lover weren’t needing guarding every five minutes! I need my hangar, something I keep getting denied because of all the crazy stuff happening here constantly!” “I wasn’t asking you to guard me every five minutes! You didn’t need to drag me into this mess if you’re going to wimp out at the sight of a windigo!” Adagio yelped back, throwing her hands up into the air as her pulse raced and her teeth grit. “I didn’t cut and run! I already told you!” “Yet you grabbed onto me!” “And you held on so tight I had to pry you off!” “Do you even know where we are!?” “No! I can’t get my maps to work, can you tell me where we are!?” “I don’t know where you dumped us!” “You live here! How can you not know?!” Gigan roared with a huff of strain in his voice. “I lived in the next city over, until you kaiju came crashing into our life and upended it!” Gigan couldn’t see it but she could, the absolute geysers of negative emotions billowing out of him in the form of greenish smoke. It was taking conscious effort to avoid absorbing it, much as she often liked getting under his skin. She was also painfully aware of how much was also coming out of her. Every mark, every snap, and the increasing yelling in their back and forth was only engendering more and more negativity. Finally got to the point she just couldn’t keep it up longer. Adagio stomped and turned around, crossing her arms, and just putting her back to the cyborg. Gigan unconsciously reached for words before looking at his hand, noticing tremors going up and down it. The metallic fingers curled back in and kneaded amongst themselves as his eyes shut. He turned around and now they were back-to-back in silence; one trying to look about their surroundings and figure out a way back to where they’d come from, the other fidgeting with internal systems to try and get something back in working order. This wasn’t a new position they found themselves in. They’d butted heads plenty of times before. Butted heads on planning, when the reveal of getting the wrong Twilight came to light, the topic of what to do with her, how to handle Gloriosa’s growing magic, and more. Their reactions to Eventide trying to shoulder any blame for what had happened was only the most recent incident. And then there was the subject of the night after the concert, when both had been attacked and tormented by Notus using their own voice. Pushed far enough into despair that Adagio tried to give away her most precious gift, her literal heart, to keep away from a monster whose name she’d dreaded for years to ever say aloud. -Zephyrus…- The title rang in his mind and Gigan had remembered it well. It had been on his mind when the windigo showed up and he’d reacted, intending to only fallback a safe distance and then rejoin the fray. A plan that hinged on grabbing the siren he’d butted heads with so much. The reason being was slowly dawning, cusping on the horizon of thought but still mostly blocked away. Gigan just tried to focus on his mechanics and get everything working again. It was a moment or two more when Adagio, trembling and rubbing her arm while contemplating a lot, finally sucked up her nerves and turned back around. Gigan perked his head up to meet her and she was just about to say something, either an observation of where they were or maybe even some kind of apology to swallow her pride, but it did not escape or notice just as soon as he was looking at her; that he was looking past her “… Oh no,” Gigan whispered breathlessly. Adagio was about to ask what it was when all perception of time slowed down to the microscopic fraction of a millisecond. He started charging forward, eyes beginning to flicker and ignite with red light behind his sunglasses while trying to mouth out something. A cold, western gale started to billow past her hair and creep along her neck. A cable shot out of Gigan’s wrist, poised to grab the siren as it swung closer, and on impulse she leaned forward to grab it with an outstretched hand. That was when a solid mass smashed into her back. Adagio Dazzle gasped as she was slammed forward by a mass of ice, which continued to sail forward and collide with Gigan, exploding into a sea of frost to encase him despite his efforts to knock it out of the way. Everything was a dizzy vertigo; air starting to distort and move in erratic ways almost like the effect of time itself was being twisted. She caught a glimpse of Gigan stuck against a tree trunk with a car sized hunk of ice growing out of a human shape anchoring him into place despite attempts to free himself. The cold swallowed the cyborg up entirely. And then in an instant, Twilight Sparkle was on top of her, eyes and face giving only a bemused façade as her fingers curled around Adagio’s necklace like there was no force barrier. Twilight braced her foot on Adagio’s stomach and kicked off while wrenching her arm backwards. The cord making up Adagio’s necklace snapped, and she felt almost as if a chunk of very being, her breath and pulse, was torn off. It was a massing thought in her mind as a tear stung on the corner of her eye as she fumbled backwards, that this was exactly what Sonata had experienced. Zephyrus took inventory of the deceptively important red jewel, looking at it in mild amusement for all the trouble it had caused despite its tiny size. “This new body has made things far more convenient if the situation allows,” the windigo noted calmly, comparing success here to the resistance he had encountered trying to wrench away Aria’s necklace and the complicated body surfing that was required to remove Notus’ spawn’s necklace. The Western Wind took a glance at Adagio, who was sprawled onto her knees and hands, heaving while frost started to form across her limbs and cheeks. Etched across her neck and collar was an ugly, ragged scar, exactly like the one her little sister had initially. On Sonata it had started out small, if still blatantly noticeable, before growing over the ensuing weeks. This jagged, tense mass was etching across her skin in a matter of moments, western gales carrying those dark emotions within the green mists directly into it without filter. It was like she was going through what Sonata had over about a month in the span of moments. Adagio gasped and shivered, trying and failing to rise, eyes glued to her necklace. Zephyrus let it dangle from their fingers before snatching it back up and holding it in their palm as they looked upon her. Crouching down, the windigo wearing Twilight Sparkle’s skin gripped the eldest siren by the chin and inspected her, “So, you really are my daughter. I almost thought for a while initially that your mother would have killed my remainder before you could be born, or right after.” Their eyes met Adagio’s as ice crawled up her neck and sunk into her cheeks. Zephyrus noticed something that spurred a glare as his gaze bored into Adagio’s even as she practically had a seizure, “… You have his eyes.” Zephyrus’ hand lifted up and towards the convulsing siren’s eyes… when a sudden crash shattered all noise and wind within the air. An eye could blink and not perceive what had happened. One moment, stillness, the next came a red flash, shards of ice were flying freely in the air, and Zephyrus was several meters away; the spot where their wrist had been now occupied by Gigan’s only surviving scythe in a failed attempt to slice the limb off. “Ah, the automaton from the schoolyard,” Zephyrus shrugged with no concern in his voice at all, “Surprised you managed to free you-“ “DON’T! YOU! DARE!” Gigan huffed and snarled, holding Adagio to him with one arm and trying to keep her away from Zephyrus whilst pointing his blade bearing hand towards the monster, “D-DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH HER!” Zephyrus just perked their brow, looking as bored as possible. A split second later they were several paces away from the pair with an icy copy of Twilight’s body painfully smashing into Gigan’s shoulder. The cyborg huffed and growled, shrugging off the hit and trying to keep himself constantly facing the windigo. An attempt at flanking them by Zephyrus was met by a sweep of an optic blast along the ground, red plasma slashing through a tree and exploding the trunk. The aged conifer cracked and groaned as it fell upon the lightly snow coated forest floor, ice beginning to seep and crawl its way across the ground. Gigan winced and gagged from a pain in his side, one with a particular localization to its origin. He could feel individual fingers, blisteringly cold digging numbness across his chest and side. Adagio Dazzle was wheezing, her sobs louder as frost began to take hold on any place she was holding on to him at. Sparks shot out from a joint due to a shard of ice getting lodged within it. Adagio quickly noticed the change, her head snapping up to look at Gigan with the truest expression of horror and terror etched across every feature. Her tears had stopped flowing, they were frozen. Before he could even say anything she’d looked at her hand in aghast dread, looked at his body where she was beginning to affect him; and shoved herself away. The siren could not stand on her own, crumbling to her knees with her arms wrapped around her midsection lest her tainted touch affect anybody else. Affect him. “Ada-ARG!” Gigan cried out as another massive hunk of ice slammed into him at full speed, staggering the cyborg before an aura of purple magic so dark it was practically black grabbed him by the legs and wrenched him off his feet. Gigan kicked and tried to free himself from the telekinetic grip that smashed him against another tree trunk, metal straining and groaning against such a force, before shrieking when he was crushed into another. Finally, Zephyrus’ hand whipped around and swung Gigan about in a wide arc. Movement with their hand matched the telekinesis to scale, Zephyrus raising the fist upwards before swinging it down. The cyborg was violently thrown in a mirrored arc that would end by wrenching him into the sharpened, blacked stump of the tree trunk he’d previously blasted through. His jacket was gouged into, but he vanished in a burst of red light just before he could be impaled. Zephyrus perked their brow in mild surprise, quickly looking back as another red flash appeared behind them. Gigan threw every bit of caution he had to the winds, not bothering to go for restraints but going straight for the lethal option. The scythe swung wide but hit nothing but an icy copy cast in Twilight Sparkle’s visage, exploding it into fragments from the sheer force. Zephyrus appeared a ways away, extending the hand now holding Adagio’s necklace. “GIVE THAT BACK!” The Nebulan weapon roared just as the telekinesis wave Zephyrus launched forth latched onto his torso and crushed inwards. Again, he vanished in a burst of red light, again his counterattack missed when his half-broken chainsaw burst through the ice copy; and again, he was forced to teleport away again. Zephyrus reappeared a short distance away, exactly 10 meters as Gigan calculated despite them clearly trying to get as much distance as possible. Every time he’d seen them seemingly disappear and reappear, they never traveled further than that. Deciding to likewise throw caution aside and having previously acquired an asset, Zephyrus reached for their neck and brought out a stone that Gigan instantly recognized from the description Aria and Sonata had given. “A useful asset you happened to be the one to confront me, machine,” Zephyrus hummed as the stone was activated on touch and memories were siphoned away, “You scared Twilight more than anyone had.” Both from the schoolyard itself and from the memories Zephyrus himself could sample in their brief time possessing the cyborg before being repulsed due to their weakened state, the Western Winds had plenty of horrors to dredge up starring the cyborg now rushing at them. Plenty of strife, fear, hatred, and all the ills of the mind. Dark mists representing such came gushing out of Twilight’s body as it briefly convulsed and whimpered, like some piece of her mind was being subjected to it while Zephyrus was still in the driver’s seat. Both Adagio and the windigo absorbed them before the second was up. Gigan, not one to leave something magical to chance, immediately opened fire. Red plasma slashed through the air, quickly followed by extended cables armed with explosive tips. Black smoke cloaked the area around Zephyrus for a time, the cyborg immediately keeping the momentum going by blitzing forward to get into melee range. A broad, black wing beat back the smoke and knocked the cyborg aside and through several spires of ice. An unworldly wailing ripped through the air as a grotesque form launched itself off the ground and hovered briefly before settling some distance away. Ethereal magic cloaked around eyes that had contracted to manic points, the orbs themselves glazing over and paling as the windigo assumed full control. Noticeably taller, Frostbite Sparkle, still very much Zephyrus, shrieked aloud and telekinetic waves split the ice around them in a chaotic crush. A red flash of light promptly appeared right in front of them; Gigan bursting into existence post warp and swinging for their head, undeterred. Adagio Dazzle trembled, barely able to perceive or understand anything. The pain and horror were so great she had to scream, and yet nothing could exit her throat almost as if it had been frozen over. It was like her life was flashing before her eyes, as if that very life was ending. Anything except pain, hatred, jealousy, and all the other heinous emotions that could motivate the worst of actions was being ripped away. The dark mists spawning around herself, Gigan, and Zephyrus constantly were getting siphoned into her at such a billowing pace and volume they blocked out almost everything in her sight. And yet somehow she was still able to perceive the rapid-fire red glimmers and focus on them even as icing tears threatened to freeze over her eyes. Smashing aside another ice copy, Gigan was beginning to understand what this monstrosity was doing when it pulled the disappearing act. -Every time I nearly hit them, they slow for a fraction of a second, move in a certain direction, and leave a copy in their place.- He pressured an already almost busted warp drive to keep up just a bit more, dodging another attack that collapsed a tree on where he’d been a moment ago and coming within a hair’s breadth of his target. A hair was cut free from Frostbite Sparkle’s bangs as his bladed fist flew past. He cycled through every visual setting he could, many scans just showing an obscuring mass of unreadable error symbols at trying to quantify magic. But he wasn’t looking for what he could see, rather what he couldn’t. Like some kind of reversal of scanning for anything, the focus was on where the errors appeared and in what shape. Every time Zephyrus vanished and reappeared, a string of broken code, be it heat signature or electromagnetic radiation, was left in their wake in a diminishing degree. The line of broken signal coding would stretch almost imperceptibly thin, but when it expanded out he could just barely discern limbs or hair; like seeing an image blurred by motion and stretched out in a funhouse mirror. A line of Zephyrus’ presence extended in a specific direction, warping and distorting the air as they went so it was like they were in the entire length of distance between Point A and Point B simultaneously; instead of just disappearing and reappearing instantly. -It’s not just super speed but it’s still instantaneous without bypassing space like me! They’re warping time and space to freeze everything and run somewhere else!- Zephyrus reappeared elsewhere to the left, and Gigan focused on that. He threw out a cluster blast from his eyes, the red beam spanning forward before breaking up in an exploding shotgun pattern. Predictably, Zephyrus’ ice copy took the hit and they showed back up further along a hillside. Further up a slope. Further to the left. Gigan chased after them towards the left; banished all caution and charged, building speed with every teleport whilst firing not just at Zephyrus but at everything along the bottom of the hillside in a cone before himself. Each time Zephyrus countered, each time he dodged by warping ahead just enough to keep them on course but not change direction. And keeping their focus on him as they battled and dodged up the hillside. Gigan’s back where his teleportation device was located started sparking so much it glowed through his metal plated spine. Zephyrus narrowed his eyes and ducked aside to avoid a pair of saws fired upon them, distorting time again to get some space from the enraged cyborg. This pest had impeded them at the schoolyard and while they saw them as just an annoyance more than anything else, they hadn’t expected them to be so determined to get at them. He’d seen this Gigan’s worst memories, and a machine of war was not one that could ever have a heart. One of his earliest memories was it being removed. Suddenly their weight jerked downward with no grounding to stop and brace their feet against. It only cost them half a second to focus, having previously been too preoccupied with dodging to notice they had run out of slope. They had peaked on the top of the hill overlooking the forested locale Gigan and Adagio had first arrived in, and had stepped off where the side had eroded out at a sharp angle. They were a powerful force again; they were ancient and had faced many foes. But lack of awareness was a mistake even the skilled could make in the face of such brazen opposition. The West Wind stumbled, and it was in that precious half second that Gigan launched himself at them at full speed; using the full momentum they’d gathered up from the constant warping just like they had fighting Ghidorah with Irys and Megalon. A sudden eruption of smoke and sparks from his mid back garnered no attention by the battered cyborg. He didn’t care about his warp engine blowing up inside him from overuse and abuse, it had gotten him within striking distance, and he swung true when they went over the end of the hillside. Gigan’s scythe shot at Zephyrus’ face and the windigo had enough space and momentum to knock the attack aside with a swift smack to the arm empowered by telekinesis. The limb twisted aside, swatted away as others had been… and the scythe cut cordage. The siren heart that had been dangling from Zephyrus’ hand was cut free precisely as the smirking Gigan intended. As he and Zephyrus tumbled over the edge of the hillside, doubling end over end; they continued to quarrel. Gigan hissed from cold pains as Zephyrus grabbed onto the left side of his face and right arm, ice quickly forming along the grasped locations and jammed into the mechanics therein. It wasn’t an attack in battle, but an attempt at mutilation that didn’t go unanswered. “Animate trash!” Zephyrus, finally emotive, snarled as his eyes contracted to crazed points. Icy sharps stabbed into Gigan’s left robotic eye and shattered it instantly. In retaliation, tightly grabbed onto Zephyrus’ face, metallic fingers lashed out and clenched onto their skull as burning red engulfed Gigan’s surviving right eye. His glasses had shattered and the snarl had nothing mechanical beyond it. “BURN.” Zephyrus shrieked in an unworldly cry as their front was set ablaze from the thin red light that lanced across it, sparking against hair and skin. The rocky ground was rapidly approached. As they plummeted, Gigan’s eye glimpsed something around the windigo’s neck, where the magic was deflecting off most of his plasma torrent. A seemingly innocuous, runic stone was rapidly flickering as the milliseconds ticked by. He lunged for it and metal fingers curled around stone he’d seen Zephyrus go for earlier. ============== X, he saw X. Or at least part of him. It wasn’t an actual sight, more an image in the mind’s eye. Just like the woman he was standing with, putting her forth to speak or whatever odd approximation of such this was. It was all Zephyrus forced her to watch as the tidal wave of sights bombarded Gigan’s mind. There actually were no words, more flashes and imagery that were coupled with emotion to give them context rather than descriptives in spoken word. A location he didn’t know. A winged form hovering above it. Gales of cold from the North, South, West, and now East as well. Doorways in space wrenched open for the storm to billow through at multiple angles. ============== Forced back into reality, Gigan’s crimson beam was suddenly intercepted by more ice forming across his face, causing the red plasma to deflect and divert away from its target. There was a scream that forced the cyborg’s attention away for just a moment. Zephyrus took the chance of loosened grip and kicked away from his enemy, an icy duplicate left grappling with the cyborg as the earth hit their back. The possessed body of Twilight landed on their feet some distance away, ignoring the very ugly burn that marred their chest around the collar and shoulder. They picked themselves up, dusted off the stray bits of dirt on their sleeve, before looking back at the source of whimpering. “Ah, there you are,” they looked upon their progeny with almost a sense of pride as if they could express such in another. More admiring their own handiwork. A legacy that could survive even them should they have met their end. And she was taking after them so well. Adagio Dazzle winced, ice starting to grow out of her skin and black ichors started to weep from her eyes along with the frozen tears. The heaving rasps she croaked out were beginning to no longer resemble speech; but the craggy, haunting cries of an entity that represented all that living shouldn’t. Without the magical component of the mermare side of her in the form of the gem, so violently wrenched away; her body was absorbing negativity and magic like a drain forced open with nothing to filter it. She was rapidly morphing into a windigo. The siren heart flickered dimly several meters away, Adagio too hurt and near catatonic to go for it. And yet she still had a shard of faculties to her to clutch her arm. A burn mark skittered across it in a grazing hit. The cold winds howled and carried with them the wisps of a blizzard. Still in the form of Frostbite; Zephyrus took a step closer, only for their foot to get snagged on something. A low growl uttered underneath a jolt of sparks. Gigan ripped the chunk of ice stuck to his brow off, his one good eye focusing intently on Zephyrus’ body with burning wrath. The other socket, fully visible thanks to his glasses long having been destroyed, was a sparking, smoking cavity. His wrist cable mechanism had failed, so he’d grabbed onto Zephyrus’ foot with his remaining hand. The other was fully encased in magical ice. Zephyrus almost seemed to shrug, “You were useful once you know. I used your memories to fully win over Twilight.” They motioned to their own body and the Memory Stone that Gigan had failed to release from their grip. “Won her over, scaring her with all the things you’ve done. Oh sure, call yourself a slave soldier; but you’re still a monster after my own being. You proved useful twice more, once at the docks,” Zephyrus motioned with a thumb towards Adagio, “And once… with her.” Gigan’s eye clicked over and it instantly widened in shock. Adagio was looking right at him, eyes expanded with fear of what was happening to her… and in terror at him. The burn mark on her arm could only have one source. The deflection of Gigan’s optic blast against the ice had stent ricochets everywhere and avoiding collateral damage was not a habit he had. Having taken a glancing hit and mind in a full panic from her still in-progress transformation, she looked on at the cyborg unrecognized in horror. “I’m hardly even feeding her dark magic now, she’s got plenty. Your spite and now shame is gushing forth, heedless of what it’s feeding into,” The West Wind mocked with a shrug as dark mists billowed out of Gigan and flooded into Adagio, tinged with embers of red, “Oh is that grief I detect? You actually care about what happens to her, is that it?” Zephyrus grabbed a wad of Gigan’s hair and pulled him up, actually studying the cyborg who hadn’t looked away from the siren he’d accidentally struck in the crossfire. Something leaked out of his mechanical eye and for once, it wasn’t something synthetic. For the first time in his life, a tear seeped from a mechanical eye before freezing. “Quaint,” Zephyrus shrugged as the western winds kicked up. Ice started to build up around the grieving and horrified Gigan more and more by the second. The last thing in clear view was Adagio’s face as ice formed over his eye. Gigan had spent decades, centuries perhaps, coming to terms with being mostly machine. A metal limb is still a limb he’d say. A replacement organ is still him, he’d say. He believed every word of it, it was true. He would never just be a machine. That is what he vowed. He would never just be a machine, and he’d keep fighting against that fear till he was no more. But as the ice grew in closer, working itself tighter and tighter through the eminence of his misery; he knew what had to be done. As the cold and dark settled in. All his being, born of the emotions he still held onto stronger than even he knew; it had to go. He finally gave up one fight so he could continue another. Something within the form before Zephyrus changed. The ice stopped growing, no negativity to fester off from. Slumped forward, no more limb than if he’d died on the spot. Frostbite Sparkle pursed their lips in mild confusion and paused for a moment to look closer. A red flicker where a mechanical eye had shut off suddenly came roaring back to life; and yet there was no life. No roar, no utterance; no emoting. Gigan burst out of the chains he’d been bound with, snapping the frost and rising up. The windigo stumbled backwards as mechanics with the cyborg audibly ground and shifted. When he staggered out of the ice, something was very different about Gigan. No expression, no body language; in fact some of his fleshier parts looked limp. There was an audible back and forth, like pistons or swivels moving, with each step. They snapped a right fist forward with a surviving scythe extended, something Zephyrus easily dodged around. It was followed up by a swing with the left hand, which was slowed down from the ice buildup around it. A fester of dark magic was spewed forth and yet it had no impact on the cyborg at all; no ice allowed to form across their body. Gigan unsuccessfully tried to make contact with several more swings before, without a word, detaching the frozen over limb at the elbow and letting it drop to the ground so the useless thing didn’t weigh them down. A Western gale smashed into the cyborg, but aside from the concussive force of the wind; they didn’t seem to register the dark magic laden with strife and misery-inducing hexes lacing the winds. Zephyrus could confirm it with a glance. There was no strife or any negativity coming off the cyborg, which braced his- its feet and started to stagger forward to get in close like an implacable force. Telekinesis grabbed onto Gigan’s chest like a crushing grip before flinging the cyborg into a tree trunk. They struck with a loud thud, only to not register any pain and get right back up despite obvious damage in the form of increase in smoke and sparks. Not even a word or groan to show life. Because in a way, there was none. “... No,” Adagio whispered through frosted lips as she looked on in horror, just as much aghast at what someone she once loathed to be around was becoming as at what she was morphing into. This wasn’t Gigan, this was a heartless machine wearing his body. His essence, his heart was no longer beating, metaphorically more than literally. Gigan had, in essence, shut himself off entirely. Anything conscious or emotive was completely tuned out or turned off. All that was left, from the robotic means of walking forward to the very direct and precise use of another optic blast Zephyrus had to dodge, was entirely mechanical. Just an animated force bound and determined to attack Zephyrus, at any cost. Except, that wasn’t all of it. For when Zephyrus tried to redirect the blast back at Gigan, the machine made no attempts to avoid a direct hit and instead just blocked it with their good arm. But upon the windigo trying to divert the blast at his own progeny, it was cut off entirely to avoid hitting her. Adagio was able to feel her pulse for a split second, and actually blink even though it felt like her eyelids had to snap through ice to do so. Gigan had done the one thing he was most afraid of, and had left himself only two directives. Kill Zephyrus and protect her. Adagio watched as the machine, for there was no life within it, waded forward despite getting icy spears lobbed at it through telekinetic waves. It tried to use its warp drive, only for the failed system to fully give out once more and spew out smoke. The pause gave Zephyrus time to lodge several lances of ice into the cyborg’s joints; causing it to stagger to the ground on its knees. And yet despite what should have been crippling, it refused to stop advancing or show any pain. Its single surviving red optic only briefly diverted as if to update itself on her well being; before a shard of ice went flying into it. Gigan stumbled forward, seemingly mostly blinded, trying to wrench the ice out for a moment or two before opting to just leave it in the socket; dragging itself forward while sparking and jolting from all but destroyed limbs. It wouldn't stop, it would never stop possibly regardless of if it managed to take out Zephyrus. “No…” She saw them now, Zephyrus. In the body of a young girl morphed into a monstrosity and yet all the more terrifying. The very thing she’d been scared of for decades. The very same being who embodied every fear and was everything in her mind that had ever gone wrong for her family. He’d taken her mother away from her, took her mother from her grandmother in a different manner, took their home away by getting her mother and aunt exiled, and took her place in Equestria away by driving her onto the path she’d wound up spiralling down in an attempt to conquer fear with gained might. And when she’d realized she’d been the villain in Equestria, realized she almost drove her own family apart after swearing to protect them, and realized how her isolation born of mistrust and strife destroyed their own plans at great cost; she’d been horrified to think she’d wound up like him after all. The temptation to just give up, let the cold come through; gnawed at every fiber of her body. Zephyrus lifted a massive growth of jagged ice up from the ground, poised to be hurled down to crush the transgressing cyborg. It might have turned its own living half off, but it still had it and needed it. It could still die and Zephyrus knew this. Gigan reached out with a blade, trying to crawl forward and close the distance as Zephyrus smirked. She felt a familiar despair, one she had before. After the concert. After finding a cyborg she’d grown to care about battered down and her on the verge of shattering. She’d removed and tried to throw away her necklace once then. Someone helped put her back together. They’d fallen apart, and Gloriosa had put them back together as she brought them together. And she’d be damned on any memory of her mother and aunt, if she’d let this abomination take more things from her. A siren heart glimmered despite being away from its owner. And Adagio let it all out. It wasn’t any particular word or utterance. It was instead, a massive exhale, containing decades of hatred and dread for her own sire; and a declaration aimed at the only two beings’ whose faces flickered to her mind when she thought of love as a source of strength against him. “WHAT?!” Zephyrus blurted out on impulse, unable to hide a brief stupor at seeing the surges of a power very much like their own aimed back at them. The weather no longer obeyed their will alone. An enormous blast of western winds slammed into Zephyrus and knocked them from their feet, ragdolling Frostbite Sparke’s body with the sheer impact. They were forced to drop their attempted execution blow against Gigan and save themselves with a time distortion. Even then, both they and their icy copy were sent hurtling back, spinning head over end, and with the duplicate shattering itself on a tree trunk so hard the old pine snapped in two by the time Zephyrus hit it. The same winds cast by Adagio ripped away at Gigan’s bonds, benign magic carried across them instead of the malign. The ice formations that had begun to erupt out of the cyborg’s form melted slightly enough to dislodge some stuck in the joints, and he was freed from the shards adhering him to the ground. Still, the shadow of the falling ice came across Gigan’s awareness, but as the enormity of frost bore down upon him and cracked tree branches on its descent downwards; Adagio bolted forward and grabbed the cyborg with adrenaline fueled strength. She didn’t pull him up and away, she wasn’t strong enough for that. Fractions of seconds instead ticked by as the ice formation continued to drop, shattering anything in its path. Another gale of wind formed to herald a returning presence, not from Adagio this time. Zephyrus wasn’t forced back for long, especially not when he just had full confirmation this siren was indeed his spawn without any doubt He and his stubborn misery went ignored. A partial mechanical eye, all that remained of the destroyed optic from the icy dagger that had been lodged into the socket with the other eye blasted and charred; uselessly focused upwards. Even without true sight, systems somehow beheld Adagio Dazzle, still half covered in frost and leaking black ichors from her mouth and eyes. She smiled even as she wept, putting her necklace onto his neck and pushing it down onto his chest. A burned and yet frosted, half broken mechanical hand touched at her fingers as a massive light enveloped them both. Frostbite Sparkle stormed forward, wincing in pain with their magic flickering off and on at certain intervals like the transformation was convulsing. Their spawn’s seizing of their own winds had damaged them more than a point blank plasma beam had, infesting their mind briefly with benevolence in thought and memory. Firsts clenched and teeth grit so tightly they seemed poised to shatter them, they braced as enormous wafts of mist blocked out everything in sight. Even in the dying sunlight, the tall pines cast eerie shadows within the cold mists, ones that came with the echoes of shattering trees. Something was moving through the fog and the instant they glimpsed it moving towards them. Time was ripped apart and slowed to a crawl, Zephyrus dodging to the left. But even after ten meters, they couldn’t totally avoid it. 10 meters wasn’t enough. It was too big. =============== Finding a magical someone who seemed to crave spotlight and a six and a half plus foot tall cyborg sounded easy on paper. And yet there was next to nothing. After several minutes of waiting and lack of calls back from both Everfree and any sign of Gigan and Adagio returning, the group split. Anguirus and Irys took to escorting the Rainbooms to Camp Everfree; whilst Celestia, Aria, and Godzilla remained behind to search for Adagio and Gigan as well as get Sentry somewhere it would be safe to leave him against risk of moving him too much. The latter group had just fanned out with kaiju and siren remaining in eachshot of each other for safety. They didn’t know where Zephyrus had gone off to; if that hit had incapacitated them and that’s why they didn’t come charging back in, or if it had only forced them back. Much as he was aware brute force wouldn’t be the ticket to destroying these abominations, Junior could admit to having fancied scoring some degree of a direct hit with the Ultima Flare instead of just overpowering the oncoming tsunami; crucial as that last part was. He’d been aiming at the wave both because of how it had to be dealt with, and because of some caution using lethal force on Zephyrus’ host. Was this Twilight truly vile and completely different from the benevolent magus he knew? Would killing her possibly benefit the scheming frost demon in some sort of way? Was she coerced into this, compliant in all of it, or possessed unwillingly? He didn’t know the answers, and that was a reason he’d taken pains to make sure he didn’t land that shot directly. Still, there was unease. And he knew well he wasn’t the only one. Aria Blaze was understandably quite stressed and showed it in every tense muscle of her body and manner. Celestia, even in her diminished state, hadn’t left the exhausted and now unconscious Sentry’s side, the force of will he had keeping himself active, awake, and fighting the windigo’s presence for days now leaving him drained. Godzilla grunted, whilst trying to feel for any indicator of where their company had gone. Gigan’s teleportation made finding a trail tricky. Especially with all the stray traces of magic still flowing about. Which was why it seemed like some uncanny flashback to his scuffle with Lulu when he felt it. It had no tactile sense, no movement in the air, no sensory input in itself. Not the flash of light, but the sense of power that seemed to move even faster than it with the light as an aftermath. Still, there was no mistaking that massive pillar of luminescence firing off into the sky; he’d been in that situation plenty of times before. It’s appearance didn’t give him cause for alarm in itself as others stopped to gawk, and a glance at a similarly observant Aria Blaze. The ghidorah-bolstered siren’s red eyes locked to his, and then looked back to the pillar in a knowing glance. By now any civilians and passerby had to have taken notice. There was no concert to hide this one and no deep water to dive into. They saw the enormity come into existence on the edge of town, towering far taller than any living thing otherwise could even if this form still looked smaller than it should have. Already outcries and running masses spilled away from the edge of town and made their escape. “Go!” Celestia yelled out to both of her compatriots as she very carefully tied an unconscious Sentry into a set with the safety belts so his neck would be supported, “Aria was it? How well can you fly?” The siren, brushing aside taking a request from an alicorn who might have been her foe in another setting, flipped her wings outwards and lifted off the ground. “Enough!” “How well can you lift?” Junior barked over the outcries of the crowds as he made his way towards the two. His extended arm gave away his intent and Aria Blaze smirked, grabbing onto it and with a bit of effort, lifting the kaiju turned man from the ground. It was the first time Godzilla had felt waves of gravitons wrap around his body and not be all the worse for it. “Enough!” Kaizer Aria cracked a smirk. “Get over there as fast as you can! I’ll catch up!” “How?” Godzilla hollered as Celestia made her way to the front of the van. The former alicorn yelled back as she pulled open the van door, “I’ll catch up! Just go! Go! Go!” “You heard her, no throwing up!” Aria Blaze yelled out as she put all of her gravity manipulation into forward motion, hauling herself and her cargo through the air at a decent pace. As Godzilla held on to her arm, he looked at the forming mass and was less concerned that Gigan had transformed in itself; the cyborg’s body clearly came into view as the light itself seemed to solidify into his body. No, he was more concerned with both why he looked so badly damaged and why he’d transformed in the first place. Eyes squinted to look through the blindness at Gigan, who seemed to be sporting a bright red light on his collar like he was wearing a necklace. The cyborg thrashed and twisted around, sparking and gushing smog all while… -Wait… Is something in his mouth?!- =========== Seconds earlier, Zephyrus tore into time itself as four ruptures burst through the cold mists and bright light. Like the bows of four great ships, they barreled forward even while time crawled along at a snail’s pace. Frostbite Sparkle ran, beating a half-formed wingspan to clear as much distance as possible. And yet the greatness of their span was too much. There was no dodging this. Ten meters, eight meters, five- Dark mists were rapidly drawn upon, energy sucked out of every cubic meter of air and ground that could be affected and frozen. Four meters, three- A black wing folded over a body, freezing in place as time snapped back to normality from the bastardization it had been subjected to. It almost seemed like that fundamental force had become vindictive of its violation. Two, one… Two jaws and two mandibles. With both arms busted and most weapons offline, blinded by his eye being destroyed, it was the last two weapons he had left. They snapped down on the frozen form of Zephyrus with an echoing crash of Giga Nizer alloy against eldritch magic ice. The monumental cyborg thrashed like a maddened dog that had caught a rat, briefly letting go only to crunch down again. The sheer force created deafening snaps like a thousand gongs striking each other. It wasn’t just the sheer kinetic force at play, the red necklace that had grown to scale with the fifty some meter titan rapidly flickered between different colors; one for each source Adagio had drawn from the past few weeks. When it landed upon a pair of hues intermixed, green on one side and gray on the other, red mists enveloped and encircled the kaiju. Gigan glimpsed someone in his mind’s eye. Two figures. One looked human, but clad in foliage with green eyes dimly illuminated behind a red mask. The other, encircling her form like it was swimming through the air, was anything but humanoid and yet the brilliant blues about her flippers and hippocampus like form gave the same sense of parental tenderness. Gloriosa and Adagio’s mothers they be, the love and legacy they left being made palpable through the siren’s magic and shared memories. He’d never known such a love or legacy in his life, he had no parents or substitute figures. The closest he could ever come was the warmth felt thinking about the two beings these matrons reminded him of. He’d shut off his own heart to keep fighting, a siren’s heart restarted it when its magic reminded him of why he wasn’t stopping. The memories of Wysteria, the Legend of the Everfree, and Melpomene, Crown Princess of Mako, smiled at the damaged weapon of war. A promise was cast and he seized his second chance. Another bite and the ice chrysalis shattered, the red mists weakening the dark magic that had so few weaknesses. He wasn’t sure if he could kill them, and if he could he wasn’t certain it would come at the cost of condemning Sonata to a cruel fate and destroying the memories within the stone. But he could keep his promise. This monster had brought ruin to Wysteria and Melpomene both, something their daughters were well on the defense again. He wouldn’t let history repeat itself. Time was running out, rapidly. He couldn’t kill Zephyrus and he had to tell the others what he’d seen when grabbing onto the stone. He’d do as he always did and manage as he could. Western winds whirled all around him and they were not of Zephyrus’ doing. A small form, relative to Gigan’s gigantic frame, held onto the damaged stump of what had been one of the cyborg’s scythes. Despite the ice forming across her body, she didn’t let it fester. The winds obeyed her now, in this moment of such a high emotional rush. The red mists, carried in the gales of rushing air, encircled Gigan like a tornado of benevolence. It proved toxic to the abomination that sired her, Harmony’s example tainting the very powers he’d passed down as a further insult added to injury. Adagio Dazzle wasn’t scared anymore. Aunt Hymnia, Mother, Twilight, the Hunters, Aria, Sonata; anyone she cared about or had ever cared for. Two faces in particular, the memories therein, contained the most potent boost. No more running away, no more having others fight the battle for her alone. Speakers blared out a booming roar that at first sounded like a shriek, before morphing into speech; both amplified far beyond what would be typically possible for the mechanical systems alone. A declaration aimed both at the monster inside Gigan’s jaws and to the citizens of the town that could no doubt see the fifty plus meter tall behemoth on their border as it spoke in unison with a siren. “RROAAAUAURAARGHGGOOOO AAAWAAAAY!” Gigan threw his head upwards and to the side, flinging the windigo-possessed Frostbite Sparkle like a fastball pitch. They went rocketing into the air in a flurry of broken ice and wisps of dark magic, sailing hundreds of meters uncontrollably. As they careened through the air and out of sight of any observing party, at times they’d seem to slow in midair only to reappear elsewhere in a desperate gambit to help their mortal form survive the fall. Gigan and Adagio both stood tall, proud as Zephyrus was sent into retreat. They couldn’t kill them, but this battle wasn’t about that. It was about keeping someone else from harm and making sure it couldn’t happen again. And to that they’d both succeeded. Adagio felt the presence of her sire leave, banished for a time. She smiled even as bits of frost started to fester and grow across her cheeks and lips. The transformation hadn’t stopped, only slowed. But fear didn’t clutch at her heart as the sun started to set in the distance; crossing her face with ebbing strands of warm beams. A part of her mind couldn’t help but wonder the what-ifs. What if those monsters never came to Mako Island? What if her mother ascended to the throne as queen and some other sired her? What if these abominations never wound up here to menace Gloriosa’s family and take her mother away? Horrible things happened, no doubt. Years ago she’d wish them away without caution, it was an easier choice when her ‘world’ was only herself and her pod. Not so easy when her world had grown so much. It had been a long journey to get here, one not over yet, and she could still mourn the tragedies that had unfolded. But perhaps for the first time in a long, long time… She felt safe enough that she’d never trade it away. The pestilence overtook her stamina and she collapsed, still smiling and content she’d remain safe even in light of that horror. He felt her after all. Gigan pitched his head down, twisted metal creaking as he bled hydraulic fluid and blood in equal numbers from the numerous breaches in his chassis and carapace. His red visor shattered, the broken mechanical eye still somehow knew where his focus was. The siren heart, the same thing that gave him sight of the windigo and the departed through their memory, pulsed dimly and he could still see. The red, glowing outline stretched out across one of his forearms; lit up like a beacon in the haze. -So, this is what magic is like…- Gigan admired it, appreciating it for the first time, before willing it away. This wasn’t his to keep, only a momentary gift. Light overtook him and he was back to the span and shape of a man, a heavily damaged man with wires, gears, and limbs of broken metal; but not a machine. Holding her in his arms, he took the necklace off himself as best he could and felt cold hands graciously accept it. Blind again, fully with his ruined eyes, he normally would be on edge. Frightened perhaps at being without feedback to his surroundings. But hearing a sniffle after shifting of hair and fabric indicated the gem returned to its proper place, he quickly felt the world warmed with an embrace. Adagio rested her chin on Gigan’s shoulder, trying to shield him against the cold as he had her. She spoke so quietly it was barely audible, shivering from lingering cold, “We beat him…” “Not-t over… Retreated, they’re still alive,” Gigan whispered in caution, “And they have… a p-plan.” Adagio only tightened her grip on him, tears of relief streaming down her face. For years she’d been terrified every time it snowed or the wind blew towards the west. For years everything wrong with the world and everything to be feared was ascribed to the name of the being that brought ruin to her mother and grandmother. For years the motivation that set her on the path to her wrongs, past and recent. The unstoppable, horrifying, and wretched nightmare had been sent into retreat; they’d made Zephyrus bleed. The tightness in her chest finally eased, seeping out in quiet weeping that had been held in for decades. It must have been infectious, as she felt a similar huff and hitch in his own breath. The ice on her body was finally almost fully melted, her windigo half pushed back and contained. “We beat him.” Gigan returned the embrace, even with his hands all but ruined, “We beat him.” Adagio giggled and pulled away, brushing a hand over his scalp and cheek while shaking her head, “What did I say about scaring me li-like that, Bolts? L-Look like shit…” Gigan sparked as he tightened his grip, almost falling back only to feel a pair of arms support him now. A tired smile creaked across busted lips. “You and me both-both-both-both,” Gigan stopped repeating when a knowing siren thumped him on the side of the head. “Arg,” Gigan huffed, “Thank yo-mph!” She was wet with sweat, smelled horrible, was still freezing cold even in the thaw; and wreaked of magic he no longer found abhorrent. He was leaking oil everywhere, had virtually no eyes, was burnt and frozen at the same time; and tasted metallic as he smelled. They had a lot of other things to worry about, but they could take comfort in one thing. They were in love. ============= Pinkie Pie kept pacing with anxiety, chewing off much of her fingernails before Gloriosa stopped her. Miss Lea seemed surprised to find her here, but that wasn’t her focus at the moment. Neither was Pinkie’s, instead both were homed in on the downed cyborg. The mess hall was still burning as day ebbed into night, casting embers into the darkening sky that flickered within everyone’s eyes. Pinkie once had a very fluctuating view of Miss Lea. When she’d first arrived and even so bravely fought to save Twilight, the middle Pie sister had looked at her with a twinkle in her eye. But in the days that followed, the stress, anxieties, confusion, and anger building in a feedback loop had left things to fester. There was even a time that lasted until very recently she could admit, she was scared of the Mothra. Had Sonata not so desperately needed her, Young Miss Pie would have been keen to hover about the poor kaiju and not have to entrust that others could get her the help she needed. Still, with the cards having fallen where they did; it seemed her Pinkie Sense intuition had paid off. “Alright, how is your hand now? Squeeze,” Lea instructed as she continued to heal one who had been her foe once, lips pursed as her spores worked to reconstruct not only the living tissue that had been damaged in the fight; but also keep the mechanical portions in good order where they could be. Gloriosa had been an omnipresent aid at her side, using her sole remaining Element to help melt away the ice stuck inside parts of the body. Megalon’s remaining mechanical hand contracted, with some difficulty and fidgeting, before relaxing. The cyborg, despite looking like he’d gotten dragged through a burning trash compactor, keened happily and nodded eagerly. Compared to how he’d been, he was seeming right as rain and certainly was so in spirit. “Miss Lea Ma’am, I’d first like to apologize profusely for that time back on Terra.” “Which time?” the Mothra perked her brow, keeping the healing magic going. Megalon just blinked like it was obvious, “That time I came charging in calling you a Palooka.” She just pursed her lips, looking more confused than anything else, “Are you sorry about the fight or are you apologizing for calling me that…?” “Yes!” Megalon nodded affirmatively. Lea blinked in mild surprise before she giggled, actually smiling. It caused Pinkie’s grin to widen even as she hugged her friend; whom used his good arm to return it. Her spirits were at last, higher than they’d ever been in awhile. Bad things were happening, but good people were working to stop them. Pinkie Pie and Mothra Lea’s blue eyes locked. “So, this is where you were hiding from me?” Lea sighed, taking a small pout in her obvious self depreciation. Pinkie Pie whimpered in the back of her throat, reaching out and putting a hand upon the Mothra’s shoulder. “No, and I’m so sorry for poofing! I was just trying to-” “She was trying to help and worried about what would happen if everybody crashed into each other,” Gloriosa chimed in to relay what she’d been told, “She was pretty good at hiding. I only found out she was basically in my basement a few hours ago.” “And don’t think you’ve lost your spot on my Party list! I just…” Pinkie nodded her head to the furthest cabin, “Was needed here.” Lea took in a deep breath and sighed, nodding slightly, “Honestly.. Until I got a friend to set me straight, you made the right call… is Sonata over there?” “Mhm,” Pinkie nodded back to her while her grip on Lea tightened slightly, “Can you?” Lea smiled and glanced at Megalon, checking him over. He wasn’t at 100%, but the bleeding, internal and external, had stopped. He was far from complete, still missing an arm below the elbow, and his recovered glasses were missing a lens that gave him a ridiculous visage. But his chipper mood and some assurance was keen to give everyone cause to think he’d been stabilized. Lea sat up after patting a smiling Megalon on the head, dusting herself off and stretching her shoulder. “Tis what I came here for. I can’t promise anything, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. I’d imagine the others aren’t too far behind me anyways, it was quite calm when I left,” Lea hummed as she paced over towards the cabin with Pinkie Pie leading her on, “What symptoms has she had?” “We-Well there’d be spats she’d get really, really cold. Lots of fitful sleep about things she wouldn’t say about. Can’t talk even though the scar is on her skin, not through it,” Pinkie Pie frowned as she counted off on her fingers. Lea pursed her lips, speaking from more than a little experience, “Some scars go deeper than they seem… You all have no doubt done everything you could, and have done plenty of good for her.” Gloriosa was helping steady a wobbling Megalon, who was stubbornly trying to rise to her feet despite unsure footing. “Miss Gloriosa Ma’am, your phone wasn’t in the mess hall was it?” Megalon chirped while almost falling over, leaving the camp director to have to steady him. “Ahgh! Careful there!... Um, maaaaybe?” Gloriosa cringed and glanced at the burning wreckage of a building she’d practically grown up in with a restrained frown, “Why?” Megalon tapped at his head with his only surviving hand, “I can’t get through to my brother and the others. I turned on my transponder for distress but I’ve heard nothing back so I’m not sure they got it. I might just be too banged up to get a signal back.” “Well that’s a problem. I think I got a landline in the offic-” Gloriosa caught her breath and froze. The temperature just plummeted. Not chilled, not lowered. Plummeted to a biting cold that somehow didn’t numb the skin. It was a powerful gale flying in from the South, practically hurricane force as it wrenched at the trees. Wood shattered and roared from being ripped apart as a torn, burnt glove burst out of the wreckage in a fist; snapping open to put itself into the breeze. A rattling waver echoed through the air as a Northern wind joined the remnants of its counterpart; the two twisting and churning through one another. Notus was dead, shattered; but in his last act he’d cast what power remained into the aether. It was what rejuvenated Zephyrus enough to re-engage so quickly, but the brunt of it had been passed off to Boreas. And the Northern Wind knew exactly what to do with it. Megalon’s eyes widened as Boreas ripped his way free of the confinements, restored enough to shrug off the confinement he’d been put through. Instantly Mothra Lea whipped around and put Pinkie behind her, the cyborg trying to do the same only to find a very livid Gloriosa instead shielding him. The cold gales, the remnants of Notus, encircled Boreas and offered brief glimpses of the shapeless, shifting horrors they truly were; not the bodies they possessed or the forms the mind could comprehend upon them. Manic laughter was carried over the tempests, disjointed and coming from seemingly multiple angles. Unseen as it could be, Boreas wasn’t just in one body. That was just a vessel being piloted. This was a force that stretched over the entire campground like a darkening storm. “Did you think we wouldn’t have an insurance policy?!” The differential North and South winds got so strong they tore limbs from trees and shattered windows. Gloriosa and Megalon were forced to hunker down and hang on to each up as Lea threw up a containment field to block out some of the storm from hitting herself and Pinkie. “We failed to triumph for Lord Grogar because of our lack of numbers, but Zephyrus’ revenge at Mako Island saw to fix that! Over one thousand years of spite, vengeance, and retribution!” The winds instantly snapped into a single direction, barreling into a singular cabin and billowing every ounce of spare dark magic there was left. Sired by a millennium-old grudge, now passed one generation onto the next. “Cast free of any tether and name her mother diluted her with, unchained from any restraint following that wretch of a traitorous goddess’ example! Let one half become the whole, as all is consumed!” The winds died off, absorbed. Ice started to crackle and chip as it festered across the cabin. Boreas grinned and threw their hands into the air. “Arise and surpass your father, one born of the South!" The frigid hurricane reached its zenith at the word, the name chosen one thousand years prior but never once uttered. "Australis!” A second passed, a countdown clock many had tried to stall had been forced to its final tick. The cabin exploded outwards in a gale of Southern Winds, shattering ice, and shrieking roars.