//------------------------------// // Episode 150: Equestrian Gods // Story: Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls // by thatguyvex //------------------------------// Episode 150: Equestrian Gods Twilight was drowning. Not in the grip of ice cold seawater, as she knew her body should still be immersed in, but rather an unending flood of random sensation and memory that washed her along a river of experience that was so jumbled and vomitous that her brain could barely hold on to her own sense of self, let alone parse out the rapids she was mentally being carried along. One instant she was feeling the warmth and glow of an idealistic field of tall grass and savory smelling flowers, surrounded by piles of books she floated across her vision to read with a voracious appetite while sipping tea that tasted of lavender. The very next instant she was screaming in pain as a blade tore at her back, feeling the mud caking her mane as she rolled away from her assailant of rotten smelling flesh and black blades, the stench of blood and death jamming itself into her nostrils as the shrill madness of battle roared in her ears. A second or an eternity later she would be clinging to somepony, their fur warm against her fur as they snuggled together in a bed of clouds. Another instant or eon after that she’d be staring up at an imposing alicorn stallion clad in robes of starlight as he lectured dozens of other alicorns like her in a hall of glass and bronze, towering into the sky.  She had no context for anything, and each stretched out instant of memory hit her with such a cloying sensation of reality that there was hardly time to do more than gasp in breathless fear of losing herself to the deluge. Astra. The entirety of Astra was flowing into her, but not in any ordered manner, but rather like having Astra poured over her in a rainstorm of the mare’s thoughts, feelings, and memories without any shade or cover to be had. Twilight was being soaked in Astra down to the marrow of her metaphysical bones and for a few moments of blaring infinity she could do nothing but flail and be carried along. But there was something inside her that remained her. Like a rope cast to a drowning pony, a safety line, something tugged at her mind and soul and kept her head above water. It was as if something within her core was insulated, keeping just a hint of the chaos at bay. She grasped at this feeling, hugging herself, wrapping her mind in this insulation, and said in repeating tones to herself that reverberated inside her soul, “I am Twilight... I am Twilight...” The memories surged, like a breaking wave, and crashed over her. For a sliver of time the flood grew crystalline as ice, becoming a clear shape. “Harmony is the key.” The old alicorn stallion stroked a beard of mist as he stared at her through eyes as solid and silver as dying stars, “Harmony you say? That’s something of an idealistic concept, dear Astra. Do not forget that the Ordo Scientia are dedicated to observable and provable fact, not pursuing philosophical debate. Or are you considering a change of venue to the Ordo Somnium?” Respect war with frustrated anger as she set down an entire shelf’s worth of notebooks and scrolls, mostly written in a haphazard scrawl of swift, messy scientific notation, “Keeper Tomearchis, this is not a flight of fancy! I have done the research, and I am not alone in my findings. The Cycle has an ingrained harmonic balance to it, and by absorbing the magic of mortal worship we damaged that harmony. Restoring it requires we redistribute that magic into the Cycle.” “Even if what you say is true, which remains to be confirmed I must add, the kind of damage you’re theorizing wouldn’t be repaired simply by giving up our divine magic,” Tomearchis said, “We’d be giving up the majority of our power for no reason other than to delay the realms’ decay rather than reverse it.” “Which is why I say Harmony is the key,” Astra said, scrambling through her notes and reveal a wide open scroll that showed a complex diagram of symbols surrounding a central image formed of seven interlocking glyphs, “Once the damaging effects of divine magic are halted, we can create a healing mechanism in which the realm itself will be granted a ‘spirit’ that seeks out and empowers harmonic elements in the world.” Depthless eyes looked over their diagram curiously, raising a swirling bushel of misty brows at her, “What manner of elements?” “Technically the ‘elements’ could be anything, which is part of the point,” Astra said, “Mortal society grows and changes under varying circumstances and the land itself might require different elements to be emphasized at different time periods, so this Harmonic Spirit would seek out whatever elements are needed at the time. Sometimes that might be things like Strength or Wisdom. Other times it might be Courage or Insight. Another age might need Kindness or Compassion. Regardless, the spirit would use these elements to gradually align the realms to a harmonic state that will help the Cycle heal the damage that’s been done to it. Then, in theory, it would be safe for divine magic to be restored to the realms.” “Only we won’t be around by then, because we’d have become mortal and become one with the Cycle,” her mentor said flatly, and Astra felt a weight in her heart as she nodded in quiet reply. “I’m sorry, there’s no other way. All we can do is relinquish that which has made us ‘gods’ in the eyes of mortals, and accept that the race of alicorns may need to fade from the world. At least for a time. I do not intend to let our people become completely extinct, sir. The Inheritor Project will revive our species, and our magic and bloodlines will become expressed in future generations, especially once the Relics serve their purpose. It is my hope that our future generations will not repeat our mistakes, but for that a record of all of this must be left behind to be found. And for that, I need your help, and the help of all Bastion Gnosis.”   He rose, his form towering over hers as metallic, silver fur rustled beneath voluminous robes of deep blue that matched her own. A feeling of uncertainty that can only come when a child fears rejection by a parent loomed within Astra as her father walked around his desk within his study of countless tomes of limitless knowledge, the greater alicorn worshiped by mortals as the God of Stars, Magic, and Knowledge, Tomearchis. He approached her, and wore a tired smile behind his bear of shifting mists that hung to the ground, and he raised a hoof to pat her on the head. “Very well, daughter. I still have my doubts about this dream of yours, but considering my tired old mind has yet to find an answer to our dilemma in all my infinite tomes of acquired knowledge, I suppose I’ll just have to lay my own faith in a little idealism. Hmph, Harmony, is it? Could you not have found a more scientific name?” ---------- “Astra...” Flash Sentry said, wondering just how it was his mouth could feel so dry while he was at the bottom of the ocean. He knew the name was of that alicorn from Equestria’s distant past that Twilight had visions of, and a part of him wasn’t even that surprised that unleashing that artifact’s power might do something like this, but that didn’t make him any happier about it. They were in the middle of a critical moment and the last thing they needed was Twilight and the gals having an identity crisis! Not to mention, what if Twilight couldn’t come back to her senses!? What if he’d just lost her? No, he couldn’t let himself start panicking. He had to keep focused and not only help Twilight, but still deal with the Wraiths according to the plan. “Look,” he said, “Whoever you think you are, right now we’re about to be attacked-” “This appears to be somewhere under the ocean surface,” Twilight, or ‘Astra’ said, quickly glancing around herself, “Many miles down, given the lack of sunlight. What was I doing here? I don’t quite remember... oh, my friends! You’re all here!” Astra spun about, looking at the other mares at first ecstatically, then with mounting confusion. For their part, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie looked about as equally confused, and Flash feared for their memories as well. At least until Applejack spoke. “Well ain’t that just the darndest thing? I feel like a’ million apples, an’ am lookin’ all spiffy ta boot, but my head feels like it’s a’ water barrel fit ta burst. Got this gal Althea doin’ trots n’ my memory.” Rarity was next to speak, still looking herself over with an appreciative eye, “I do admit my head feels a bit like I’ve had too much wine in the afternoon, but otherwise I feel unbelievably fantastic. Like you I seem to have the memories of... a stallion? They’re quite odd, like a vivid dream, so real, but clearly I’m not this Zosimos character.” “Um, I feel really strange,” Fluttershy said, her armor rattling slightly as she shifted uncomfortably, “I’ve never felt so... well, peeved, while still also being so calm.” “Hey Twilight, you okay over there? You look even more freaked out, and tricked out, than we are,” said Rainbow Dash, flexing her wings, which produced currents of air that pushed back the water around her, forming a bubble, “Whoa! Check this out! It’s like my whole body is made out of the freakin’ wind! This Tachys dude must’ve been something else!” “Wait...” Astra said, shaking her head, “This isn’t right. Is it? You’re my companions, are you not? But you’re different? And my body is different! What’s happened to me? Why can’t I remember? Where’s Bastion Gnosis? What happened to... the war? Did the war end?” She looked at the staff that remained levitating in front of her, her eyes narrowing in question, “I feel like I should know what this is, even though I’ve never seen it before.” Cutting through the water in a distinct conversation stopper, the howling of Wraiths grew louder, and Astra suddenly turned to actually see the approaching horde, her eyes shooting wide as blazing stars, “What!? Corrupted souls!? But we were supposed to halt the cycle’s decay! What are so many doing here!?” Fed up, Flash moved at full speed to get in front of her, fixing Astra’s eyes with his own, “Listen to me! I can’t explain it right now, but you’re not who you think you are. You’re a mare called Twilight Sparkle, and we need you. You said I could purify those Wraiths, corrupted souls, whatever you want to call them, if I use my Zanpaktou on a spell that’s anchoring them here! You said you could find that spell’s location. Please, I’m asking you to ignore everything else right now, and just focus on that.” Astra’s mouth opened, then closed slowly as she looked into Flash’s eyes, and he saw her measuring him, taking in his appearance, and he even felt a pulse of her magic wash over him. In those spiral eyes he saw her mind working fast as a shooting star. “You... your name is Flash Sentry. I don’t know why I know that, but I do. Very well, I shall refrain from further questions and help you deal with these unfortunate, corrupt souls. As for the rest of you, you’re not my companions, but you certainly feel like them. I apologize, like Flash, I know your names, your faces, but not why. I hope that won’t be a problem.” “That’s a big ‘no problemo’ on my end, Not Twilight!” chirped Pinkie Pie as she spun her freshly besparkled lute and gave her head a huge tap with a hoof, “If there’s one thing me and Mal got in common, it’s that we don’t sweat details and can carry a tune!” Her hoof then strummed with hot pink speed and neon giddiness upon the strings of the lute, her whole body lighting up with a corona of shining white sparks that pulsed with the beat of a heart pounding chord that sang through the dark waves to instantly drown out the Wraith’s howls. In an adrenaline soaking blur her hooves belted out rifts of empowering sound, a rising build of electrifying music that instantly lit flames within the hearts of everypony present. Flash himself didn’t just suddenly feel like kicking butt and saying screw it to names, but he could feel his body becoming lighter and more energetic, his reiatsu rising like his soul was giving a sudden fist pump. From the looks of surprise on the faces of the mares, all of them felt it too, Rainbow Dash buzzing her wings and making a giddy chuckle under her breath. “Whoahoho! I don’t know what you’re doing, Pinks, but keep doing it! Time to ride the wind into the heart of this battlefield!” The air around Rainbow Dash expanded further until a tempestuous bubble of swirling storm wind surrounded her, and Rainbow Dash’s wings began to transmute into what looked like fields of solid air, like the wind itself given living shape. She then burst forward in a spear of water slicing wind force so fast and potent that she all but carved an instant tunnel in the depths that lanced forward directly into the leading pile of Wraiths. The air then exploded around her with such shredding force that it cut swaths through the ocean in all directions. “Ride the wind... just like Tachys would say,” Astra said, blinking, then guiding her staff forward, “No matter. Our eager vanguard has joined the battle. Follow in her wake and carve a path through the enemy line.” “Ain’t gotta tell us twice, sugarcube!” Applejack said, and as she shot forward, her body began to gleam with greater intensity, the metallic aura of gold within her fur growing a deeper, hot orange as the water boiled around her body.  “Let’s try not to get separated, shall we?” said Rarity, following suit, gliding along swiftly through the water beside Applejack. It seemed that even with their bodies no longer having the forms of seaponies, the water was giving them no trouble.  Pinkie Pie, still belting out music from her empowered lute, swam along in a jaunty corkscrew manner, followed closely by Fluttershy who moved with a silent focus that bordered on unsettling.  “Just remember we need to find the spell anchoring the Wraiths here,” Flash said to Astra, “You, er, Twilight said she was going to use one of her new spells for that. This, uh, Astral Sphere thing.” “I don’t know of such a spell, but that’s quite alright. I know many other spells, and I assure you I will find what you’re looking for,” Astra said, and Flash suddenly felt his body being gripped by her magic, like a cold breeze gripping his skin with powerful, if carefully gentle, force. “Now, to the fray.” Twilight wasn’t exactly slow, but Flash was used to the mare making use of the teleportation spell to move around a battlefield quickly, or at least some manner of hastening spell. He didn’t even get a glimpse of what Astra cast, but it left him dizzy as they were essentially above the mass of attacking Wraiths swifter than he could have Flash Stepped, but without the bright light or moment of disorientation that came from a teleport.  The Wraith’s front line had already scattered somewhat from Rainbow Dash’s attack. The mare was now confronting a pair of the larger Wraith forms that had taken the shapes of a barb coated angler fish and an octopus with serrated blades for its eight arms. With a turn of her sword, wrapped in wind, Rainbow Dash became a flash of dozens upon dozens of intersecting, cutting motions, filling the air with the searing buzz of severing air. She then strutted, wings of wind fluttering proudly, past the two Wraiths, which seemed to pause in momentary confusion before their enormous bodies did their best impression of branches being shredded by a woodchipper.  Not to be outdone, Applejack came in like a super-heated meteor. A cluster of around fifty or so Wraiths screamed obscene fury at her, but that didn’t stop the mare from her relentless course. Veins of heated light crept up into her hardened, metal shillelagh, and across her own armored body. She then proceeded to spin her body like a top, water pressure all but ignored by what appeared to be overwhelming physical force. Wraiths pounced at her in a cloud of darkness. A cloud that proceeded to get shredded like moist paper by unstoppable momentum and a hammering club of metal that seemed to treat everything in front of it, physical or spiritual, with equal contempt. Limbs shaped into cutting blades or stabbing points tried to pierce or rend Applejack’s flesh, only to be deflected by a hide as if she was herself a statue of hardest stone or steel. By the time she burst out of the other side of swarm of Wraiths, she landed on top of one of Aqualania’s higher buildings, and planted her shillelagh on it. “Keep it comin’ ya’ll! I can take all ya got n’ more!” For Rarity’s part, her motions were not that of the bombastic Rainbow Dash or battering ram that was Applejack. No, she was a glint of grace and speed, moving like a snake among mice. The six chakram did not dance so much as live out a performance of death, inviting its audience to a stage where Rarity was the main attraction and her foes mere backup performers to her every motion. Each blade left a trail of different colored liquid in its wake. Red seared and bubbled away as one Wraith boiled and burst like a balloon. Green left any Wraith that touched its sickly glow in a state of unnatural retching, as if the ghostly beings were suddenly able to feel disease once again. The coils of blue venom froze Wraiths in place, as if left paralyzed. Trails of orange cut through Wraiths and left them flailing helplessly as if deprived of their senses. The chakram that oozed purple venom stabbed into the heart of a Wraith cluster shaped into the form of a nightmare crustacean, and it tore itself apart as its many component Wraiths started to tear into each other with mindless abandon. Of all the chakram, only the sixth one, the one dripping black, did not strike. Rarity kept it close to herself, unmoving save to keep pace with her flowing motions that deftly evaded what few Wraiths managed to get close to her, which were not many at all. And even then, when one did manage to just barely scrape an attack at her, Rarity poised a scaled covered limb to block it herself, and turned cold, serpent eyes to the Wraith before saying, “Apologies, darling. Even if you’re the best dancer among your fellows, my card isn’t open today.” With a twist of her hips she launched a kick that sent the Wraith flying back, as if it had been a thing of physicality rather than a being of spirit. By then, taking all this in, Flash understood the transformation his Twilight and the mares from Ponyville had undergone wasn’t merely a physical one. They were radiating both magic and spirit energy. The former far more than the later, but he could sense the distinct mixture of the two powers, so similar to the way it felt with Sunset Shimmer and the human counterparts to these mares. The balance of the powers was different, but the mixture was there. This notion was only reinforced as he watched Fluttershy enter the fight, somehow subtly moving around to the side of the main melee in such an understated fashion that it had to have been intentional. Three of the larger fused Wraith masses had been looming there, readying themselves to pounce upon the building Applejack had stood on. One was in the form of a horrid undersea reptile with limbs as large as train cars. It had raised these hands high to try and smash down upon Applejack from behind, but Fluttershy simply came up from behind it as well and politely tapped the back of the giant shadow monster’s head with her hoof. “Excuse me. I need you to stop being a threat now. I’m sorry, but this will only hurt for a moment and it’s only until Mister Sentry fixes what’s wrong with you.” The monstrous Wraith didn’t even turn so much as undulate it’s incorporeal form to create a mass of stabbing spikes that shot out of it’s back, neck, and head to try and pincushion the innocuous mare in exceedingly not innocuous armor. Flash did his best to follow Fluttershy’s movements, as they were akin to looking at a splash of red and yellow painting a canvas in fast forward. The edged elements of her arterial crimson armor cut through shadow with the slightest motions of her wings or legs. Each minutely neat severing resulted in a gaping cut far larger than should have been possible from the relatively small blades protruding from the armor, and each wound in the otherwise supposedly untouchable Wraiths suddenly began to bleed as if they were wounds on flesh and blood creatures. The reptilian, kaiju sized Wraith howled as oily black and red “blood” flew from its wounds and then into Fluttershy’s shield, as if the disc of metal was a mouth greedily drinking.  The Wraith shrunk in size, then became disjoined as its hundreds of smaller Wraith components fell apart, each one still draining red tinged black substance into Fluttershy’s hungry shield. Meanwhile she herself glowed with sanguine light, her eyes turning freshly red, even as her expression remained apologetic yet quietly assured of herself.  The fallen Wraiths did not dissipate, but nor did they seem to have the strength to move, vampirically robbed of might and will.  And furthermore, that power now swelled within Fluttershy herself, further empowered by Pinkie Pie’s relentless playing. As such, when the two other colossal nearby Wraiths turned their attention to her, striking out with prodigious limbs of deadly design, she responded in a scarlet streak of violence. Holes were torn into the Wraith’s massive bodies, their size now detrimental rather than strength, as Fluttershy easily created wounds that proceeded to drain them of vitality, her shield dripping with its hungry desire to consume in a bloody glow of potency. Flash tore his eyes from that spectacle to alight upon Pinkie Pie, whose hooves never stopped moving upon the strings of that lute that was certainly generating a sound more akin to a modern rock bank. He saw the odd pipe organ protrusions on the back of her armor pumping out a steady rhythm of vibrating sound, adding the effect of an entire band layered over the playing of a single instrument. The music was a physical thing in his soul, and he didn’t doubt everyone in hearing distance had to be feeling it. But beyond the fiery manner in which he felt it alight a blaze of fresh power inside his tired, near exhausted body, wiping away even the lingering pain of the terrible poison he’d endured, he could see Pinkie Pie’s abilities extended beyond the musical support boost she was giving her friends. The Wraiths that tried to charge in at her had their motions disrupted as if they could no longer move right. Like puppets on strings they were redirected, as if following the beat of the music, to tumble about and crash into one another. While they could still try to control their bodies, still try to rip and tear at this pink pony’s seemingly vulnerable flesh, their ever action was twisted and pulled about as if they were being remixed in a music video, sent jauntily into attacking one another or simply shaking in place as Pinkie Pie’s music seeped into their every spiritual pore. And that wasn’t all. With every crescendoing riff of power from the lute Pinkie Pie would spin about and swing the instrument like some medieval battle axe. Each swing sent out disrupting waves of sonic energy that vibrated right into the cores of dozens of Wraiths, ripping through like strings of micro-cord.  “Amazing,” he found himself saying, and he heard Astra make a ‘hmm’ sound of curiosity next to him. “They have the strength and powers of my comrades, but each one is a bit different from what I remember. I think I know what this is meant to be. I... made these Relics? To let the world heal, to pass down what we were to the future? My head is so fuzzy. And I keep thinking of a mare like me, but who isn’t me.” A cluster of Wraiths screamed through the darkness at them from below, and Astra gained a distinct flare of irritation on her features that made her eyes flare up like burning stars. “Excuse me, I’m trying to think!” Her mane flickered like a void on fire, and her horn turned to a solid purple bar of eye searing light. She waved her staff forward, and the black orb on its tip was surrounded by a thick nimbus of swirling space, like a shard of star crusted stellar topography became manifest in the small area around the orb itself.  A perfectly triangular plane of such void-like space manifested in front of the Wraiths, then extended countless streaking comets of bright light that exploded among the Wraiths like an apocalyptic star shower. The Wraiths were gone in near an instant, and Astra dismissed the window of space she’d created, only to manifest a magic circle beneath her and Flash that was wide as a parking lot in the same breath. From that circle shot hundreds of individual beams about the width of a quarter, which sliced down into the Wraith horde below with relentless and viscous cutting swaths. Both Wraith and numerous Aqualanian pieces of architecture below were equally bisected by the beams, leaving devastation in their wake. “If only I had a minute to think things through,” Astra muttered, “But I can’t ignore what’s in front of me. Who is responsible for the state of these souls?” Charybdis’ voice cut across the din of battle below. That would be me. From the mass of Wraiths the voice rose without origin point, but Astra’s eyes narrowed and began searching the army of shadows that continued to do battle with the other mares below. “Who are you? By what right have you forced the souls of the dead to linger beyond any reasonable point of good health!?” I’ll assume I’m speaking with the ‘god’ who once lived that the unfortunate fool, Twilight Sparkle, is the Inheritor of. Astra, was it? I’m sorry, I didn’t study up on every deity that existed back then, but I am somewhat familiar with you, at least. Daughter of Tomearchis and Iah herself, although never acknowledged by her rather prideful mother. Oh can I relate to that, let me tell you. As for these souls. I’m preserving them. Astra’s nostrils flared, and her four wings grew larger in seeming size as the starstuff flowing from them burned like gasoline had drenched a bonfire, “Preserve? Oh do not tell me the Preserver’s cursed ideology survived!? We won that war once already! I do not intend to let it repeat!” So quick to leap to conclusions. I can see your Inheritor is a lot like you. I’m no ‘Preserver’, but I am an opportunist. The power of the divine is a wonderful tool, and I’m using it to protect my people and be a better ‘goddess’ than any of you defective deities ever were in your supposed glory days. I will not let the souls of Aqualania be dissolved into your damned ‘Cycle’! So feel free to die now, ‘goddess’, since you should have stayed dead and gone in the first place! From the main dome of the largest Wraith mass surrounding the palace a series of baleful dark violet shards of light emerged, forming into translucent orbs that resembled the eyes of some monolithic sea beast. These eyes focused in on Astra and Flash sentry, and inside their magically charged depths, a quartet of piercing blasts of magic shot out. Astra gave out a thick whinny of challenge and brandished her staff, generating a shell of midnight black space void in front of her. The blasts, moving like living creatures, and now resembling the shapes of unnaturally mutated orcas, swam around the void and tried to get at Astra from several angles at once. She simply, while still gripping Flash in her magic, used that same movement technique from before to shoot herself upward at unbelievable speed, causing the orcas of explosive magic to crash into each other and detonate in a vast, spherical explosion. Flash, still trying to get himself together, at least did take notice that the spell Astra was using to move actually was a lot like Flash Step. She was wrapping herself and him both in a frictionless, inertia canceling bubble of magic that then moved like a pinball being slapped about with a burst of raw arcane power. It was like an advanced form of telekinesis that was swifter, and moved oneself or other objects around at high speed.  “Does that spell have a name?” he asked out of pure, dorkish curiosity, and to his surprise rather than chastise him for asking that in the middle of a fight, Astra gave him a smile that was stunningly similar to one of Twilight’s sheepish grins. “Huh? Oh! Ictu. Means ‘Blink’.” He nodded, and took a step away from her before gesturing towards the enshrouded palace with his Zanpaktou, “Mine’s called Shunpo. Flash Step. Let’s go find that spell anchor, and ruin that loudmouth witch’s day, eh?” With that he turned and burst away with his swiftest Flash Step, and he heard Astra actually let out a surprised laugh behind him and didn’t doubt she’d be keeping up with ease. In fact, he was realizing he didn’t have to worry about any of these ponies. And he didn’t doubt that Twilight, his Twilight, would make her way back to him soon. ----------  It hadn’t taken Twilight long to realize one very important fact. The tether of familiar, warm magic with which she was using to pull herself up through the broken dam of Astra’s memories was coming both from inside herself and from a distant if steady exterior source that was equally familiar to her. Harmony. This was her Element of Harmony, Magic, coursing through her metaphysical veins. She’d given up the physical object, the tiara with its sparkling star crystal, that had embodied this Element to the Tree of Harmony deep within the Everfree Forest. Yet here it was, as potent as ever, wrapping her soul, helping insulate her from the wash of divine magic and memory that had been threatening to overtake her. Surely, if her Element was helping shield her from losing herself entirely, her friends must be similarly being protected? Indeed, if she focused and looked hard she could almost see past the flood around her to notice that similar, smaller streams of memory had wafted out across the metaspace towards what she could only assume might be her friends. And her Element of Magic reacted with a pulse of recognition for similar lights, the other Elements at work. Harmony was doing its thing, even if the crystals themselves were a world away. And now Twilight knew Astra, at least in part, was responsible for the genesis of what would become those Elements.  She could see it, as memories became more distinct, like windows she could view as she traversed the prismatic river, pulling herself ever at a hard, upward slope towards consciousness.  She saw Astra surrounded by fellow alicorn researchers, members of Bastion Gnosis. Absorbing memory, she knew that was the great fortress of spherical, ring enshrouded brass and bronze she’d seen. It was Astra’s home, a vast library, school, and city of the alicorn race’s greatest minds. Tomearchis was their leader, a stallion of equal standing to the sisters of Day and Night, and one time lover to one of them.  It was here the best minds of that eons ago age toiled to try and fix the problem of the damaged Cycle. The war of Reformer and Preserver, the unnatural way in which alicorns had absorbed the magic of mortal worship to make themselves akin to gods, had broken something inside the metaphysical makeup of this world’s natural cycle of life and death. The Relics, Inheritors, and the spirit of Harmony itself were the last ditch effort to heal the wounds and atone for their wrongdoings. To give of themselves, sacrifice their divine, immortal lives, so that the mortal races could live on and the world one day know full restoration.  Twilight looked through a window of memory and saw Astra and her dearest friends arrayed around a pedestal of steel, circular, with small platforms upon which objects floated in fields of magical everlight. She saw the mace, the shield, the swordbreaker, chakram, lute, and club, all floating as magic as raw and intense as life itself poured into them.  When it was done, Astra and the other alicorns were left exhausted, their bodies still that of alicorns, but the potent magic that made manes and fur so lustrous or ethereal now gone. “Do you... think that when the time comes our Inheritors will know what to do?” asked Zosimos, his breath ragged. “They’ll have our memories, but it will be fragmented,” Astra said, “I can’t do much about that. Every Inheritor is going to have trouble with that, but it’s impossible to separate memory from magic.” “That’s going to be rough,” said Tachys, taking off his helmet and giving the swordbreaker a solemn look, “Especially considering who knows if they’ll even be all together when it happens?” “Well, on that subject I can, at least layer a spell upon these Relics that should increase the chances of them being drawn together,” Astra said, and Malva giggled. “This is why I stopped playing cards with you, Asty. No fair if you can manipulate fate with that star magic stuff.” “Ugh, it’s not ‘manipulating fate’,” Astra defended, “The stars really do govern aspects of chance, nothing more. I can boost the chances our Relics will end up near one another, that’s it. Harmony itself may have to do the rest.” “You truly do believe in this Harmony of yours, don’t you?” said Althea, “You and your father have the base design finished?” “Almost. It will be set in motion once we ensure all the Relics are in place. Most will need to be contained, but there’s no safe way to ensure they stay that way. That said, father has suggested leaving behind... custodians, of sorts.” “What does that mean?” asked Penthia, tilting her head curiously. “It means that in order to prevent these disasters from happening again somepony has to remember, and pass the knowledge down,” Astra replied, “Bastion Gnosis will do its part, but there must be at least one bloodline that continues on as natural alicorns. Father is working on the specific method, and is basing it upon Iah and Eos.” “Yikes, that sounds dangerous, considering how those two can get,” said Tachys, “We sure that’s a good idea?” “Well... he believes it will balance out if we also leave at least several of the greater spirits relatively intact. Paralogos, for example.” “Why does this plan make me worry for the future?” said Zosimos, to which Malva laughed and elbowed him. “Hey, look at it this way, Z, it really can’t get any worse than ‘world drying up like a shriveled fruit’, so I say things can only go up from here!” “You’re entirely too energetic for having just expended your divine immortality and shoved it into an instrument.” The memory faded into opaque gray as the window passed and Twilight kept pulling herself along the tether Harmony had provided. She could parse it out now. Celestia and Luna had known of this because they were the bloodline given stewardship of the truth. No wonder they discouraged things like worship or treating them like deities for the length of Equestria’s history. They were protecting the world from the old alicorn’s mistakes. Discord, he knew too, but apparently that had hardly stopped him from playing his games. Although Twilight now realized even in his momentary victory back then, he’d never set himself up as some kind of god. Even in turning the world into a land of pure chaos, he’d known better than to repeat the errors of Equestria’s one-time gods.  How many other Inheritors were out there? How many Relics? One for each of an entire race? It sounded like most had been hidden or contained somewhere, and only a few like hers had ended up scattered across the world. Still plenty of questions, but now she could only focus on the tether, pulling ever higher towards a point of distant light where her mind, subsumed by the culmination of Astra’s memory, now was doing who knew what with her body? ---------- Applejack had seen Fluttershy deal with the giant Wraiths behind her, and feeling as if she shouldn’t be too idle herself, decided to try something out. The half formed memories of a powerful, large mare named Althea were riding her mind like a buzz of potent apple cider. She didn’t really know who Althea was, only that the mare had been a good, honest sort who loved building and forging things to be stronger. And she had magic to do that with, like a hot forge in her heart. That magic now burned inside her with furnace strength, and Applejack had something of a notion of how it worked. Seeing a wave of Wraiths rising up from the shadows of Aqualania’s streets to try and form a new massive form, Applejack looked at the building she was standing on. Intuitively, she understood its structure. She knew every seam and bolt, and what needed strengthening to make it better as a building, or what needed weakening to make it collapse. So she did a little of both, Apple-style. She swam off the room, rapidly, far faster than she ever felt herself move before, reaching a midpoint of the skyscraper sized building. She seized upon a weak point she just knew instinctively was there, and without even using her shillelagh, she turned and kicked out with her two bucking legs.  The hit with explosive, bombing force. The building cracked down the middle with ease. She then turned around and hefted her club of raw, magically forged iron. With a wound up swing, she smashed the wall of the crumbling building, but rather than  break it, she infused strengthening magic into the entire edifice of stone and metal. This made the building surge forward like a baseball hit by a world-class batter. Thousands of tons of reinforced metal proceeded to smash apart the forming together cluster of Wraiths like flies being smacked by the world’s biggest tennis racket.  “Hooowheee! Can’t wait fer buckball season this year,” Applejack remarked. “Oh, um, well I don’t think we’ll be allowed to play like this,” Fluttershy said, floating down to Applejack, her eyes still red as raw blood, “But at any rate we should probably go help Flash and Twilight get into the palace, since I think that’s where they’re going.” Applejack looked, taking a second to track down the streaks of light that she assumed were ‘Astra’ and Flash Sentry, making a straight line towards the massive main dome of Wraiths still around the palace. She adjusted her hat, which she was infinitely glad she still had even with the fancy new transformation, and said, “Good thinkin’. Ya alright, Flutters? Ya look kinda... intense.” Fluttershy gulped and nodded, “It’s very strange. Penthia, she... has a lot of violent memories, but I think she’s like me. She doesn’t like hurting others. It just sometimes has to happen. I’ll be okay.” For now that was enough for Applejack, and the pair turned to start swimming back towards the main fight. On that front, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had grouped up and were carving a solid path forward, albeit a bit more slowly now that the Wraiths seemed to have realized how dangerous these ponies were and weren’t coming at them quite as mindlessly as a moment ago. The Wraiths organized themselves somewhat, sending in flankers and skirmishers to try and keep the mares busy while other clusters formed new huge sized forms that were adapting to each mare’s individual style of combat. In Rainbow Dash’s case, one Wraith mass took the shape of a heavily spiked lobster beast that was firing lances of solid darkness at her from a distance, always staying back and using smaller Wraiths to distract her from using her speed to always dodge. It was... not really working, per se, as Rainbow Dash swiftly cut down just about any Wraith that got close to her as she formed more and more air around herself, generating a small swarm of bubbles that fired back at the lobster Wraith with cutting blades of air.  Meanwhile another Wraith cluster was trying to negate Rarity’s advantage with her many chakrams by forming into a squid-like mass of dozens of tentacles, trying to keep the charkams held in place or otherwise catch them so she’d become vulnerable. This was made difficult by the fact that even slight contact with the poisonous blades either left tentacles melting like being injected with acid, or all but frozen and uselessly still. All the while Rarity seemed untouchable, not out of the kind of raw speed Dash was using, but more by simply knowing exactly when to move to avoid a grasping dark limbs’ reaching swing. As for Pinkie Pie, she continued to be Pinkie Pie, but in full surround sound stereo complete with backup band. Even the Wraiths didn’t know how to adapt to her and her lute that simultaneously confused them, empowered her, and cut apart just about anything in her path with sonic lashes of cutting sound. Applejack and Fluttershy’s arrival upon this scene was simply overkill in the same manner a steamroller was overkill on a set of traffic cones.     Once joined together, the five mares became less like individual combatants and more swiftly formed into a cohesive machine of Wraith crushing gears, spinning unstoppably through the ranks of shadow like a thresher through the fields. It wasn’t simply that they all knew each other well enough to fight with full knowledge of what those besides the would do moment to moment, it was that the memories from five other warriors from the distant past were fueling their teamwork by layering a whole plethora of additional combat experience on top of the mares’ already experienced battle instincts. In short, the only advantage the Wraiths had were near inexhaustive numbers, and that wasn’t going to slow the mares from Ponyville for long. Although that issue of numbers was not altering. Much as the mares were inflicting devastating damage on the Wraiths, they were not actually destroying the twisted souls. Which was fine by the mares, none of whom wanted to actually do harm to the souls of Aqualania beyond what was needed. The entire point of this was to buy Flash Sentry and Twilight time to find the spell keeping these souls here and free them. But that did mean that as many Wraiths as the five chewed through with blender-like efficiency, the spirits slowly recovered, rebuilt their shapes, and came back for more. Yet the five did carve a swath, following the wake of Flash and ‘Astra’, who had continued on towards the dome surrounding the palace. For those two, Charybdis had thrown up a gauntlet of deadly, dark magic.  The four eyes of glowing baleful violet occupying the dome shifted about at high speed, following the motions of Astra and Flash as they both made full use of their individual techniques to devour the distance to their target. Charybdis’ magic pumped out a snow storm barrage of spine-like constructs of pulsating power that shot from the baleful eyes. Each spine exploded with swarms of further needle thin energy projections of piercing power, all but covering the entire area in front of the dome in a thick wave of such attacks that it left no room for maneuvering, no matter how fast one might evade. Astra tapped into her staff to summon forth a cloak of void-like space to form a cone in front of her, absorbing the swarm of penetrating needles like a vacuum. Yet this void was not perfect, and the overwhelming volume of these magic needles started to tear into the very fabric of Astra’s spell in a way the mind of the ancient alicorn seemed to recognize. “This magic, it’s tinted with divine elements? How is that possible? Is this monster another Inheritor? But it doesn’t feel right.” Hmph, right or not, it’s enough to still challenge your own half awake power, ‘Astra’. Now fall! More spines fired out, converging towards Astra and the defensive cone she had in front of her, but the alicorn responded with a burst of power from her horn that shot up and conjured forth lines of several dozen magical circles that then proceeded to fire blasts of incandescent starlight that swatted down many of the spines coming towards her. However several spines got around behind her and spun around, rushing in and then detonating in bursts of needle swarms. Astra turned, but then Flash was there, throwing up his hoof so that his Zanpaktou was held vertically in front of him in a blocking motion. Bakudo Number Thirty Nine: Enkosen!” (Circle Lock Fan) A wide, circular disc of concentrated yellow reishi took shape around the edge of his blade, becoming a many meter wide shield that managed to block the initial rush of needles, although a few still managed to penetrate the barrier and come dangerously close to his face. Astra quickly capitalized on the brief reprieve and flared her power higher, raising her staff and turning the line of many magic circles she’d summoned to sweep line upon lines of magic beams in a circular motion around her and Flash, blasting through hundreds of remaining spines of dark magic. “Come on!” she shouted to Flash, “We’ll blast right through the center!” “Right!” he said, and joined her at her side.  This time Astra reshaped her cone of generated void, and made it larger around them both. “I don’t have access to my original power,” Astra breathed, “But this will still do. I don’t know who this creature we’re fighting is, but she’s somehow tapping into a Relic. But it’s not functioning right. This power of hers, a lot of it’s just magical talent. I can tell she’s straining herself, however. She can’t keep this up, not at the distance she’s casting at. Most of this is being drawn from the corrupted souls. The second we free them, she’ll lose a lot of power here.” “Do you know where the spell anchor is?” Flash asked. “No, but as soon as we get within the dome, i can find it. With the Sphaera Astralis.” Astra blinked, “Strange. I know that name now. Twilight, I know her, too. She’s...” the alicorn gave a rough shake of her head and just like that she was off like a shot, using her cone of voice to tear a path through the swarms of further spines Charybdis was firing from her dome of massed Wraiths. Flash rushed to keep pace, creating duplicates of himself to cut down any spines that tried to maneuver around their flanks. Then, suddenly, they made contact with the dome itself. The cone bored into the mass of Wraiths and Flash abruptly found himself surrounded by the thick darkness like a miniature ocean of oil. Astra’s power shined out around them both, magic beams cutting left and right to push back the walls of howling Wraiths that started to form faces and grasping, clawed limbs to try and tear at the pair. Flash cut about with his Zanpaktou, severing limbs left and right, guarding Astra’s back as her magic cut a path forward. Just as swiftly as they’d entered the dome they now burst through it and into the open space around the palace itself. Glancing down, Flash saw the courtyard. There, he saw sahuagin, a huge group of them. Most were wounded and gathered around a metal sphere laying amid the rubble in the middle of the courtyard. He saw that shaman that had created the terror beast, and nearby a group of warriors carrying the unconscious form of who he recognized as Morgawr. Astra looked upon the sahuagin with a twitch of mild shock, “Are those Domare’s people? I thought they’d all been killed by the Preservers. What are they doing- wait! That sphere!?” The shaman, Divistus, upon seeing Flash Sentry and Astra, raised his arms and let out a bitter laugh as he dragged his sacrificial dagger across the flesh of his arm, spilling dark blood into the shining translocation sphere, “Too late, surface filth! My Mistress calls us back to the Abyss’ embrace!” The sphere of metal, already vibrating with an aura of red light, gave off an even greater shine of crimson as it drank Divistus’ blood. Quite swiftly a field of scintillating ruby light reached out and covered a circular area that encompassed the gathered sahaugin, one and all. They chanted deeply in their undulating voices, giving praise to Charybdis, as the water and very space around them swirled like a whirlpool. In an instant all of the remaining sahuagin vanished, drawn into the sphere like lines of ink, leaving behind the ball of metal, now dark and dormant of any magic energy. “The heck was that?” Flash said, blinking. “I don’t believe it, but it’s a transportation device invented in my very home, Bastion Gnosis. But what was it doing here, in the possession of a people I thought were made extinct by the war?” Astra said, shaking her head and then narrowing her eyes to focused slits, “No matter! I’ll find the source of this horrid spell keeping these unfortunate souls here, and put an end to this nightmare. Now let us see... Sphaera Astralis, was it? Cover me, Flash Sentry.” Her words came upon the heels of the Wraiths within the dome surrounding them reaching out as dozens of them fused together into reaching, clawing hands of midnight black. Astra began to summon up the power of the Astral Sphere, although where Twilight had formed the magic circle to summon it between her wings, Astra used the tip of her staff as the focal point. The lines of power formed even faster than when Twilight had done it, although Flash wasn’t sure if that was because of Astra herself, or the changes in Twilight’s body due to the Relic.  Either way, she still needed a few seconds, which Flash bought by taking up a defensive position above her and going full force against the oncoming phantom claws of the fused Wraiths. Although his reiatsu was flagging to his limits within him, he fired off several Shakkaho Kido blasts to burn apart one giant claw, while spinning about to create a half dozen duplicate reflections of himself to dice down another. This still left more that sliced towards him with sharp fingers of cutting shadow, and he did his namesake proud to flash amid them, his Flash Step giving him narrow room to avoid being torn asunder as he worked vigorously to keep Astra clear of danger. One shadow claw tore at his left hind leg, while another cut a burning red line across his right cheek, but he kept moving, flicking out a Byakurai Kido in a blinding white lance to puncture a claw that nearly got too close to Astra. He ducked another blow, reflecting himself over and over again to create Flash Sentries that tore through the claw he ducked and two others that tried to snake their way behind Astra. His Zanpaktou started to feel heavy on his arm, but he kept cutting, kept duplicating himself, even when doing so meant one of his reflections took a clawing blow to the stomach, too shallow to be fatal but drawing more blood into the dark water. Then the world filled with dense violet light, and suddenly hundreds of magical beams, each more bright and intense than the last, cut through the darkness on all sides of Flash. Astra had summoned the Astral Sphere, then immediately separated it into ten smaller spheres she then cast magical beams into that then shot out in spreading, splitting displays of piercing arcane destruction. The Wraiths, even as they formed scores of new clawed or bladed limbs of titanic proportions around them, were cut down in seconds by the relentless barrage. At the same time, a sphere appeared next to Flash, the miniature Astral Sphere hovering in front of him with buzzing anticipation. “Flash, I’ve cast a homing spell into that portion of the sphere! It will home in on the source of the spell anchoring the Wraiths! Follow it to the center, quickly!” At Astra’s words, the tiny sphere next to Flash dipped down, like an eager puppy waiting to be walked. Flash could only nod and follow it as it led him down into the courtyard, then cut sharply left towards the... towards the temple! The same one Aria and Sonata had been held captive in! And as he quickly followed the sphere towards the temple entrance, the Wraiths howled and the dome began to close in, hundreds of smaller Wraiths pouring from the mass while larger formations broke off in shapes of every terror of the deep imaginable. Astra faced them all, magic blazing around her and her staff as the alicorn’s eyes burned with starlight and her wings poured out veils of void, ready to unleash devastation upon her foes. ---------- Twilight was nearly there. She could feel the edge of her body’s physical consciousness at the tip of her own senses. Like crawling out of the flow of a rapid river, she reached out across the tether of Harmony towards the seemingly endless gap between mind and body, where a jewel of light, like that of a burning white star, waited for her touch. ----------- Flash heard a storm of magic exploding in the courtyard behind him, Astra unleashing such arcane power as to put the best Kido masters he’d ever seen to shame. By this point he didn’t doubt whatever these alicorns had once been, if “gods” was the right term or not, they were every inch the match or more of what the Soul Reapers of his world were. Their powers differed in nature, but not in potency, and he didn’t doubt those Wraiths would not be getting past her. Within the temple’s depths he followed the tiny portion of the Astral Sphere that was hunting down the foul magic responsible for the souls of Aqualania becoming as they were now. It was shockingly easy and near anticlimactic, he discovered, for the sphere led him towards the very heart of the temple, past the chambers where the sirens had been held captive. Here the temple’s main area consisted of a tall, grand space, filled with slabs of stone carved into pews for worshipers. Columns lined the walls, artfully shaped into images of seaponies with heads bowed in prayer. Past the many stone pews was a massive space where the wall was carved inward like a sideways bowl. Within that area was the temple’s main focus, a colossal statue of marvelously detailed stonework. Flash recognized the image of the statue as Domare, Lady Sea, the patron goddess of the seaponies, whose painfully beautiful features were given lifelike relief in the cold stone they were carved into. Surrounding the sea goddess were smaller statues of no less lifelike but still impressive creatures, primordial sirens, whose chests bore stones of glittering ruby.  The temple was pristine, save for one thing. Domare’s hoof was held out as if to hold an object, but this object had clearly been torn off some time ago. A pile of broken stone lay at the statue's front. Driven into the ground, as if it had pierced whatever object the rubble had once been, was a tooth as large as Flash was tall. It pulsed with a faint trace of shadow, as if brushing away the light around it. The miniature Astral Sphere went up to this tooth, casting its pale cosmic light upon the scene. As if its light was pulling back a veil, Flash saw line after line of dark red and black magic appear around the tooth and spread out from the ground where it was stuck. It was like looking at a crawling web of ever shifting symbols that made his eyes hurt, but he could tell the magical web consisted of a spell that spread out through the very walls of the temple, and presumably the palace and city beyond. The focal point for the magic that held the souls of Aqualania as eternal prisoners of their own destroyed city. He approached with some caution, wondering if there might be some final defensive measure. Nothing lashed out at him, no spell trap or hidden guardian. But there was one who was watching. He felt Charybdis’ presence like a splash of ice on his mind, and above the tooth a dark orb suffused with strands of bright light suddenly hovered, her voice painfully pointed as barbs. Do not touch that tooth, boy! You have no idea what you’re doing! “Pretty sure I do,” he said, grunting as he shrugged off her words that scraped at his brain and swam towards the tooth, his Zanpaktou poised. Oh but you don’t, Soul Reaper. I know all about your kind. I know that you use those swords to ferry the souls of your dead to your precious Soul Society. Do you think that’s what will happen here!? That you’re saving my people? Idiot! You’re dooming them! If you use that sword to undo my spell, they’ll be gone for good! Every soul will dissolve back into the Cycle, lose themselves entirely! He didn’t pause, but he did look at the orb that represented Charybdis from wherever she watched and projected her power from, “First off, you don’t seem like the type to care. Second off, screw you.” Argh! You’re worse than Scylla! Why do you think I anchored them here!? If I didn’t, they’d vanish into the Cycle and be lost forever! “Or reincarnated. That’s how it works back home. Souls move back and forth. This world doesn’t seem that different.” Reincarnated or destroyed, what difference does it make if they lose their memories and personalities in the process? I’ve been striving for centuries to learn how to circumvent the Cycle. Make souls immortal. Like the gods once were, but better! I will succeed, even with those mares interfering. He glared at the orb as he felt her try to exert pressure on his mind, but he was guessing she was using up a lot of power outside. He was wary of an attack from her, but didn’t see one coming, and he nodded to himself. “At a distance you need proxies to cast your spells through, don’t you? Those poor sahuagin you’ve duped into worshiping you, or the Wraiths whose souls you’ve shackled to this place. Right now, with nothing here to act as a proxy, you can’t stop me with anything but words. And guess what, I don’t care about your reasons right now. Even if you weren't trying to kill my friends, and the woman, er, mare I love, I’m also a Soul Reaper. Guiding souls to their natural rest is my duty, and I will fulfill it.” With that, he struck fast and true with Kochi Yojinbo. Charybdis let out a seething howl. No! Damn you! NO! Even if she couldn’t cast spells to stop him, Charybdis brought a hammer of raw mental force onto Flash’s mind with her booming voice. It nearly stunned him to paralysis, but he’d trained under Captain Celestia extensively, and she’d similarly crushed him time and again with the force of her spiritual pressure. Until he’d learned to cope with it, to act even when being pressed down upon by forces beyond himself.  Perhaps if Charybdis’ power and focus wasn’t split between multiple areas of battle she could have stopped him then and there, but Flash’s Zanpaktou did not halt. Its keen edge pierced the large tooth, and Flash poured his spirit energy into it. He enacted the Konso ritual, a purifying force to guide souls to their proper rest. He wasn’t quite sure how it might interact with the spell or the Wraiths, but he could feel the spell spiderweb out to all the thousands of Wraiths filling the city. For a moment that feeling alone nearly crushed him, sensing an entire city’s worth of despair, suffering, and hate all balled into one ocean of madness. He weathered the storm, his Konso ritual filling the pierced tooth, then spreading through the lattice of the spell in a cleansing wave. It was as if the Konso co-opted the spell itself, making use of its pathways to swiftly reach every single Wraith in the city within seconds. He heard Charybdis’ voice once more, an inferno of anger directly now solely at him. You... will... pay. I swear it on every soul you just doomed to dissolution, Flash Sentry. You, that mare you claim to ‘love’, all her friends. Oh, and don’t think your friends in the human world will be safe either. I’m opening a door to there too, and when I do, oh am I going to enjoy myself. But not before paying you back for the crime you’ve just committed. He kept his Zanpaktou inside the tooth, making sure the Konso continued to take effect, but he glanced up at the orb that represented Charybdis, and curled his lips in a grimace of a smile, “Lady, after what I’ve seen today, you ought to be way more worried about Twilight and the gals than me. They’re the heroes who are going to kick your ass. I’m just the escort.” ---------- When Twilight finally, with a final stretch of her hoof, touched the mind that was in possession of her body, she felt herself fall for one heart throbbing movement. Then she was in a realm of endless white, a precipice at the edge of consciousness, swiftly falling towards waking reality.  And there was Astra, both passing her at the speed of light, and frozen momentarily in the eternal moments between seconds. “Ah, so you’re Twilight Sparkle,” Astra said, giving Twilight a rather odd, nervous smile, “I’m, um, pleased to meet you? Although we’re not really ‘meeting’ are we? I’m not really ‘me’. I’m a memory of myself, given to you by the Relic. In a bit, I’ll be absorbed into you, and you’ll only be you.” “Astra,” Twilight said, her mind cartwheeling about, grasping the situation and seizing up in the moment as she grasped for things to say, reaching out to touch the other alicorn’s shoulder, “I have so many things I need to ask you! About the war, the Relics, the Cycle, Harmony, all of it!” “I know,” Astra replied with a small, sad twinge in her eyes, her smile fading, “You might find answers in my memories here and there. The Relics aren’t... a perfect creation. Kind of a rush job, really. You’ll need to help any others you find, other Inheritors. Help them cope. Some of them will be of the Preservers, but don’t let them become enemies. The world can’t survive another war like that. You have to build it better than we did.” “But I don’t know enough to even begin to guess at what I’d need to do! Who are the other Inheritors, besides my friends? And what about-” Astra put a hoof up and shushed Twilight with a touch. “There’s a lot that I wish I had time to sit down with you and talk about, preferably over some coffee,” Astra said, then shook her head, “But I’m just a memory. And I’ll be your memory, soon. Just know that I created the system of Relics and Inheritors with the hope that what we alicorns were, whether you want to call us gods or just a bunch of fools with too much power and arrogance to know what to do with it, will live on through those that would come after us. Those like you and your friends. I’m trusting our power, and the future of our world, to you, so that you can hopefully make something more of it than we did. Avoid the same mistakes. Hmph, from what I’ve seen of Charybdis, there are some already making those mistakes all over again. Stop her, please.” Twilight got a hold of herself, taking a deep breath, hoof to chest and slowly breathing out, “I don’t know if we’ll live up to the hopes you and your friends had, but you can be certain we’ll try.” To that, Astra let out a shuddering sigh, as if finally letting a massive weight fall from her shoulders, “Good. I’ll put my faith in you, then. You and that handsome stallion you’re with.” “Of course- wait what? Were you checking out Flash!?” With a relieved laugh on her lips, Astra was gone, flowing into the depths of Twilight’s memory, as she herself was catapulted forward into consciousness with her metaphysical cheeks still burning red. ---------- The sensations of her body filled her once more, and Twilight took a deep breath just a few seconds before having a small panic attack as she realized her body was not that of a seapony. After a moment of thrashing about, thinking she was drowning, she paused and looked at herself, realizing that she was still breathing the water around her as readily as air, despite her lack of gills. “Huh, that’s strange. Am I under the effect of some other water adaptation spell that doesn’t require transmuting my body?” she wondered aloud, then took note of the other physical changes to her form. She was still very much an alicorn, but she felt taller, grander, with four wings brimming with the magic of some space born void. Four wings!? That certainly felt a tad odd to her and she flexed them experimentally, wondering at the aerodynamics of having four. The robes cladding her body felt finer than any silk she’d chanced to wear (mostly modeling one thing or another for Rarity as a favor), and her whole body felt energized with a distinct thrill of power that made her feel lighter than air itself. Then there was the staff she was holding in front of her in a grip of levitation magic, almost unconsciously so. She instantly recognized the superficial elements of the mace she’d picked up, now changed into a staff whose top blossomed like a metal flower to reveal the black orb within. Inside that orb she felt the core of the magic that suffused her body, the “divine magic” of the alicorn race, of Astra herself.  Twilight shivered a bit, taking a second to try and clear her head. Astra’s memories were an uncomfortable weight in her head, like an overstuffed luggage bag that had to be sat on to make it close properly. If one could have mental indigestion, Twilight thought this must be what it felt like. She imagined it would take time for the memories to settle in, although she had no fear they’d overtake her, now.  Setting that thought aside, she looked around her, recognizing the palace courtyard, now empty save for herself. The vast, black dome of condensed Wraiths was replaced by a dense field of ghostly blue lights, a field of thousands of miniature wisps that twinkled like azure fireflies. Even as Twilight watched, these lights began to float up, rising through the ocean depths to parts unknown. “Twilight!” She was nearly tackled off her hooves by Rainbow Dash, who grabbed Twilight up in what looked to be a soft cushion of air that pushed back the water around it. Twilight was briefly astounded by Rainbow Dash’s changed appearance, which was soon followed up by having to stare at her other friends as they each in turn arrived in the courtyard. “Looks like ya made it through alright,” Applejack said, sinking to the ground heavily in her thick, dark iron armor and shouldering her oversized shillelagh, “Are ya... still thinkin’ yer that Astra mare, or are ya our Twilight?” “I’m me,” Twilight said, then realized how that didn’t actually answer the question and hastily added, “Twilight, I mean. Astra is gone, or rather her memories are no longer in control of my body. I still remember, sort of. Everything is jumbled and I can’t ‘see’ much of it, but I’m fully me.” “That’s how it feels for the rest of us,” Rarity said, still floating a bit higher as she kept watch on the slowly vanishing field of wisp-like lights, “At any rate, we can work out the details later. I take it you and Flash Sentry were able to put things to right, given all of the Wraiths quite suddenly stopped fighting us and began to turn into these rather pretty lights?” “I believe so,” Twilight replied, looking around, “But I don’t know where Flash is. I didn’t see what was happening when Astra was in control.” “I see him over there. Look,” Fluttershy said, nodding towards the shadowy entrance to the temple. None of the others could see through the gloom, but perhaps Fluttershy’s senses were somehow sharper in her changed state? Her words proved true, for no more than a second later they all saw Flash Sentry slowly swim forth from the temple, looking haggard but very much alive. “Flash!” Twilight called out, rushing to meet him, while her friends followed swiftly behind. She didn’t even feel any embarrassment as she wrapped Flash Sentry up in a tight hug with her hooves and wings. He gave out a pained grunt, but hugged her back just as tightly, “Heh, worried about me, were you?” “Always. Are you okay? What happened in there?” Twilight asked, checking him over. “I’m as okay as I can be, considering Charybdis tried to give me the mother of all headaches. But that didn’t stop me from breaking the spell,” he said, patting his Zanpaktou, which had reverted back to its sealed, katana form, “Turns out Konso worked, just like you thought it would.” He looked up at the rapidly vanishing field of wisps, and Rainbow Dash made a wary face. “We sure everything worked? I mean, they ain’t going to turn all shadow monster on us again?” “I doubt it,” Flash said, frowning in thought, “I felt some of what happened through my Zanpaktou. I think the Konso worked to purify at least some of the corruption that had set in, while breaking the chains holding them here. I got the feeling their souls were being drawn away somewhere, but something like a tide, or magnet?” “They ain’t goin’ ta yer Soul Society or nothin’? I ain’t sure how that there blade o’ yers really works,” Applejack said. “Oh don’t be silly, Applejack,” said Pinkie, “We don’t even have a Soul Society here. Or do we? Dun dun duuuuuuun!” “Yeah, pretty sure you don’t,” Flash said, half smiling, “No, I don’t think they can go to Soul Society. I mean, it took Starlight Glimmer stealing a massive teleportation device engineered by the Thirteenth Division’s finest minds to just transport herself and her followers here. I doubt crossing the barrier between worlds is that easy. Well, mostly. Besides, if the Konso sent them to Soul Society, then the ritual would have summoned a Hell Butterfly to help guide them. I didn’t see or sense any of those. So my best guess... they’re going wherever souls go when folk die here. Wherever that is, beats me.” “The Cycle,” Twilight said, “It's what Astra and the other alicorns were trying to protect. Their war damaged it somehow, and I think temporarily removing divine magic from the realms and creating Harmony was their plan to fix it.” “Well that just hurts the ol’ noggin’ tryin’ ta sort out,” Applejack said, scratching at her head. “Eh, don’t sweat the details, I say,” Rainbow Dash declared, spreading her wings and striking a pose with her swordbreaker, “But seriously, check us out! I dig this even more than those forms we took when we zapped Tirek!” “I do admit the overall design and color coordination is a bit better than the somewhat over the top appearance we had at that time,” Rarity said, “But I confess I do hope these changes aren’t permanent? Much as I fancy these fetching crystal scales, I’d rather not have them twenty-four-seven.” “Astra did say the changes were temporary and that the Relics were something to tap into when we needed them, but I’m not certain how to change back,” Twilight confessed. Since there was no harm in trying, she took a moment to focus her attention on the staff. In her mind she pictured both it and herself as she’d been. It, a humble mace, her a somewhat less humble alicorn.  With remarkable ease she felt the power slip out of her like taking off a suit of armor. The changes to her body, the form fitting robes, all shimmered into liquid light that then flowed into the staff. The staff in turn reverted its shape, flashing with light and shrinking into the form of a mace once more. Twilight looked surprised, then realized she couldn’t breathe the water any longer. In very swift order she re-cast the old water adaptation spell before things got... messy.  “Pwha! Okay, note to self,” Twilight, now a seapony again, said breathlessly, “Don’t do that while still underwater.” “Yeeeah, gonna wait until we’re back up top before I try changing back myself,” Rainbow Dash said, giving Twilight a bemused grin. Suddenly light flooded the courtyard. They all looked up to witness the source of the light being from the searchlights mounted on the hull of the Treasury. The ship moved above the palace, sending beams of light to check the courtyard and fixing upon the ponies there. Admiral Seaspray’s voice could be heard, amplified from an external speaker. “I do say, are all of you quite alright down there? Are all hooves accounted for?” Twilight swam up a few meters and waved, shouting, “We’re here Admiral! All of us are safe! We won!” And it was a good feeling. This had been among the longest days of Twilight’s life, facing down an assortment of dangers one after another. But she and her friends had won through. They’d rescued Aria and Sonata, defeated the sahuagin, braved Aqualania, discovered the Treasury, liberated the trapped souls of an entire city, and given Charybdis a proverbial bloody nose in the process. Amid all that, they’d also discovered the Relics of a bygone age, tapping into the power of the ancient alicorn race, once Equestria’s gods. Now they were Inheritors of that power, with a heavy burden to use it to make the world a better place without allowing the mistakes that once brought that same world to the brink of doom from repeating. Mistakes Charybdis seemed intent on either repeating, or finding a whole new spin on. And Twilight Sparkle wasn’t about to let her have her way.