“Pause video,” Starlight told Merlon. Merlon’s screen froze at the precise moment Dimentio triggered the explosions in his little box. Just barely visible were the shocked expressions of Twilight, Toph, Cosmo, Caspian, Data, and Vivian.
“Why… are you showing me this?” Tippi asked.
“Because there’s something weird here. Merlon, skip forward a few frames.” The explosion progressed. “A few more… keep going, one frame at a time, until it happens.” The fires kept raging, until one frame Twilight and company were just gone. Not burned, not exploded, not reduced to cinders, just gone.
“What…” Tippi fluttered forward. “What in…”
“I don’t know what it is,” Starlight admitted. “But I knew they hadn’t been blown up, I would have felt the Element of Magic shattering.”
“What does this mean?”
“They were sent somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“No idea,” Starlight admitted with a shake of her head. “Merlon insists that the explosions were distorting his sensors so he couldn’t get a clear reading on what was going on inside the box.”
“Almost as if…”
“Dimentio was trying to hide something, yeah.” Starlight clicked her tongue. “Either he did this on purpose and didn’t want anyone to know, or he did this by accident and something about the stone Heart or the Element of Magic took advantage of the situation and got them out of trouble.”
“That doesn’t help us figure out where they are…” Tippi said.
“No. But hey, they’re not a pile of ash! That’s good, right?”
“...Yes. Yes it is.” Tippi fluttered higher. “Just before they were taken, Twilight was talking about assuming the best. Wherever they are, I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to get back.”
“The question is, what can we do?”
“They’re the heroes. I’m pretty sure we can’t do anything.”
Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Tippi, you’re one of them. You can do things.”
“Me? Oh, no no. I’m… a guide. I don’t stand on my own at all.”
>>I disagree, Tippi.<< Merlon said. >>You are every much a hero a—
Merlon’s screen went dark. Shortly thereafter, the ambient light of Flipside went out, plunging everything into absolute darkness.
Starlight lit her horn, lighting up the street they were on. Several other unicorns who happened to be on the street lit their horns as well, in addition to a few Starfleet officers turning on flashlights and a mixture of other lighting methods, including a small dragon’s fire breath. Already, the people were starting to murmur in uncertainty about what was going on.
Looking into the distance beyond Flipside proper, Tippi could see that the starships still had lighting and power, including the massive Federation Starbase that was currently holding most of the Equis refugees. It wasn’t power that had been turned off—it was just the natural light of Flipside.
What had happened?
“Hello!” a highly compressed digital voice spoke from seemingly every direction. “My name is Shadoo! And just so everyone’s clear on how this works, I am the actual master of Flipside! Unfortunately, it looks like none of you have any idea what that means. Even the old coot in your computer seems to have forgotten it all. But—that means I succeeded! Those foolish Creators never finished this forsaken city. Which means all of you are unlawful trespassers!” Shadoo let out a disgusting laugh. “But I don’t mind, really, I don’t. None of you have anything to do with the sins of those long-dead idiots. I’ll accept you as my servants, no questions asked.”
There was a pause. Tippi was sure she could hear shouting coming from somewhere.
“It appears as though some of you object to this. Understandable, if stupid. Though… looking forward, I can see that very few of you are going to bow to me. Too willful, too obsessed with surviving this whole ‘all worlds are about to end’ nonsense. Bah. And you won’t believe me if I tell you I see a future where the Void doesn’t win. To be fair, I wouldn’t believe me either. So how about I cut you a deal… you all get out of my city, and I won’t systematically reduce all of you to black sludge.”
“Nobody’s going to take that offer!” Starlight shouted. “If you really can see the future, you’d know that!”
“There she is.” A spark of darkness appeared in the air in front of them, and Tippi knew that this was Shadoo. “You know what, I don’t even care about this city, do what you want with it. This will be much more cathartic.”
“What do you want with me?” Starlight asked.
“You? Nothing at all. It’s the disgusting butterfly that’s fluttering behind you I want.” With a burst of black swirls, he suddenly turned into an exact copy of Tippi, except made of solid darkness. His voice remained the same, however. “You are my replacement.”
“I… what?” Tippi fluttered back.
“Do you know what I was built for?” Shadoo asked. “Why I was made? I’ll tell you. I was made to be the guide, the compass for this entire city!” He fluttered closer. “They decided I was too… dangerous for that. I was locked out while they worked on my replacement. Removed the ability to see the future and chart destiny, a horrible oversight that just made her a whiny brat. After that… I didn’t let them continue.” He laughed. “But somehow this corpse of a city managed to build you from their leftover plans! A third guide of Flipside! A weak, insignificant butterfly of nothing. You’re just an unstable mind graft picked at a very specific time… Nothing. I can’t even believe fate considers you one of the heroes.”
“I’m… so sorry you were treated like that,” Tippi said. “But they’re gone now, you don’t have t—”
“You’re right, they are gone. Nothing here matters. I’ve already locked that old program in a blackbox, all that remains of their hubris is you. And once you’re done… I’m completely free.”
Starlight unleashed a beam of sharp energy right at Shadoo. His butterfly form was unable to take it, shattering into a dozen pieces on contact.
Tippi let out a sigh of relief. “Thank y—”
“Did you think I was finished, bug!?”
The shadowy swirl returned, this time taking the shape of Vivian.
“H-how!?” Tippi stammered.
“I was built to lead the heroes, to be one with their fate. I can see all of them.” He clapped his hands, triggering an explosion of black flame around Starlight, tossing her back. “And I’ve had time to practice at the bottom of that Pit…”
Starlight pushed herself through the fire and summoned a dozen shards of magic crystal, throwing them at high speed into Shadoo. He disappeared into the ground, as Vivian had done several times.
“Starlight, look out!”
Starlight levitated herself into the air. “He’s not going to get the jump on me…”
Shadoo launched out of the ground, transforming from Vivian to Twilight in an instant. The black alicorn lifted his horn and unleashed a torrential laser at Starlight. She attempted to meet it with her own, but the power of the darkness was simply too much. The resulting explosion cracked nearby buildings, dislodged the stones in the road, and cracked glass for quite some distance.
Starlight slumped to the ground, out cold.
Shadoo transformed into Cosmo, pointing a finger at Tippi. “You’re next.”
Tippi fled as fast as she could, narrowly dodging the monstrous roots and vines that Shadoo was summoning with no effort on his part. It’s like he’s unlocked all their full potentials…
“At this point, you’re probably marveling that I’m somehow stronger than all your friends. I already told you!” He transformed into Twilight and teleported in front of her. “I had practice.” He unleashed a laser that, once again, Tippi managed to dodge, flying into the skies of Flipside in a half-panic.
“You can’t run forever!” Shadoo transformed into Data and jumped after her, shifting to Caspian mid-flight and swinging his sword. It missed her by a millimeter. He somehow brought the sword up again for another strike in the same second, but one of the Federation starships trapped him in a tractor beam.
“You think that’ll do anything!?” Shadoo screamed, transforming into Toph. “This form may be blind, but I see through the city itself!” He reached out his hands and bent the metal of the Federation ship around the tractor beam, disabling it. With a shift of his legs, he triggered the explosions in the incoming photon torpedoes. Shifting to Twilight, he reflected the phasers back at the ship.
Tippi took the opportunity to fly upwards, to where there were more ships. Phasers, missiles, and more exotic weapons flew wild at Shadoo. All they did was slow him down. He shifted rapidly between Twilight and Vivian, flying after Tippi, turning intangible, and reflecting attacks back at the assaulting ships.
“Just hand her over!” Shadoo called to the entire city. “She’s not worth it!”
The Enterprise placed itself between Shadoo and Tippi, making Picard’s feeling on that particular sentiment fully clear. The energy of the Master Emerald prevented Shadoo from punching right through the ship’s shields—so he just turned into Twilight and teleported to the other side. One teleport later, and he was above Tippi. He punched her with his Data form.
Tippi screamed in agony as she was thrown down to Flipside’s highest platform. Struggling, she managed to crawl to the elevator shaft—which was luckily empty for the moment.
Shadoo arrived just as she fell over the edge.
“Your running never ceases to annoy me.” He transformed into Tippi again, flying after her falling form. She fell past the platform and into the city proper, careful not to open her wings until after she’d passed the Light Prognosticus room. Spreading her wings, she managed to catch enough air to drift into the Heart Pillar room.
Shadoo followed her. “Oh no you don’t!” He transformed into Data and fired the phaser, immobilizing her.
But she was still a light butterfly—she continued drifting toward the Hearts. She would not have made it all the way, but the six artifacts of love and creation recognized their hero’s need. They pulled her into their midst.
“No!” Shadoo shouted, transforming into Twilight and unleashing a laser of dark magic into the pillar, attempting to shatter it. The six Hearts found this attempt at overcoming their power laughable, shrugging it off as if nothing happened. “You can’t hide behind your precious Hearts! You can’t!”
“I… think I will,” Tippi said, feeling the energy return to her. “And… I don’t think it’s hiding. I think it’s using what I have available to stop this rampage of yours.”
“The Pure Hearts are not offensive!” Shadoo snarked. “They defend. You can only protect like the coward you are! What could you have them do to me? Nothing!”
“I… think they have something else in mind.” Tippi sent a request to the Power of the Hearts. It would be convenient if you generated a door closer to here than the top of the platform, wouldn’t you think?
A dark blue door appeared on the ground beneath Shadoo, swinging open to the endless expanse of white that had once been Equis. Shadoo dropped down for a moment, but turned into Cosmo quick enough to stop his fall and attach vines to the edge of the door. “You won’t get rid of me that easily! I w—”
Actually, we don’t need a portal here anymore. Go ahead and sever the door’s connection for now.
The door vanished. The parts of Shadoo that were in Flipside when it closed shriveled up and died in a manner of seconds. As for the rest of Shadoo… well, if he lived, it would only be a day or so until the destroyed world consumed him.
All of Flipside’s lights returned. Tippi noticed that, unlike before, everything actually had shadows now.
“I… I did it.” Tippi laughed. “I did it! Hah! Take that, Shadoo, Tippi’s got your number! Remember me in that place and… yeah.” She stopped talking for a moment. “...The trash talk really doesn’t suit me. Hmm…”
She fluttered out of the grasp of the Hearts and back down to Flipside proper, where everyone greeted her with cheers.
“How… do you know what I did already?”
>>I told them.<< Merlon offered from his nearby screen. >>You saved us all from that monster, Tippi. You saved me.<<
Eggman, Ty Lee, Amy, and the remaining members of the Pit team teleported right in front of them.
“That… that Shadoo was at the bottom of the Pit, wasn’t he?” Tippi asked.
Ty Lee sighed. “Yeah… we’re sorry, he fooled us.”
“But we found something much more useful!” Eggman declared. “The master control to Flipside! We won’t have to try to work out strange loopholes for making portals or activating any of the city’s technology anymore—we have everything. And with Shadoo gone, there’s nothing else stopping us!”
Tippi fluttered a little higher. “You know… I know that everyone’s worried about the heroes, that they’re gone—though we’ve just gotten information that maybe they were just sent somewhere else—but you know what? Today… look at what we have now. Absolute control over Flipside. A dangerous enemy who used the power of the heroes, defeated. We… we can do this. I can do this! So what if a world has been destroyed and it seems like all hope is lost?! Let’s keep fighting anyway!”
“YEAH!” the crowd shouted—including Starlight, who made sure to wave to Tippi to let her know she was okay.
“Eggman, tell me everything the master control can do,” Tippi said. “We might need all of it.”
~~~
Shadoo stood in the emptiness, feeling it eat his essence away bit by bit.
Why hadn’t he foreseen this? Why had this slipped past his radar? He could see any major shifts in the future, and he was pretty sure his end was one of those things!
“Unless you are but an insignificant mite on the cosmic scale.”
Shadoo whirled around, coming face to face with Dimentio. “...You. I remember you.”
“Ah ha ha ha ha! Like a man shaking hands with a clown, I am surprised! But if that Pixl’s memory of before is returning, you no doubt have the same capacity.”
Shadoo transformed into Twilight and unleashed a massive beam of energy at Dimentio. He simply sidestepped the entire thing, chuckling all the while.
“Stand still!” Shadoo shouted.
“Oh, no, I rather enjoy being alive, thank you. Buuuut… I don’t enjoy you being alive. I just came by to watch you suffer! Please, continue draining your energy. It’ll make it end faster.”
Shadoo surged forward, slicing at Dimentio at a blind rage, continuing even as his essence dripped off, dissipating into the white nothingness. He swung, chopped, sliced, and used every ability at his disposal… every last one of which Dimentio found laughable.
“How…” Shadoo breathed. “How did the heroes do anything to you!?”
“My my my, assuming they actually defeated me, are you?” Dimentio cackled. “Ah ha ha ha! How narrow minded.”
Shadoo charged… and became nothing more than a puddle of dark sludge evaporating in the winds of nothing.
“Well, that was satisfactory.” Dimentio snapped his fingers, vanishing from the dead reality once more.