Episode 152: The Middle Game
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, Captain Celano,” Twilight said, offering the avian airship captain a warm smile and equally pleasant hoof to shake. Celano offered up a sardonically charged half grin as she gripped Twilight’s hoof with her talon and shook it.
“Don’t know why you’re bothering to thank me. I gave you a lift, that’s it. You and yours are the ones that conquered an ancient underwater city and surfaced with that in your back pocket!”
Celano dipped her head in an awed nod towards the Treasury. The massive Seaquestrian vessel was floating in the water beside Celano’s airship, making it look like a bathtub toy by comparison. Celano’s crew had been gawking at the other ship for some time, gossiping over it’s capabilities while Twilight had brought Celano up to speed on what had occurred down in the ocean depths.
Once it was resting on the ocean surface, the Treasury used complex pump systems to remove the water from its interior and pressurize itself for surface travel. Admiral Seaspray was going over the systems with Starlight Glimmer to ensure it would be prepared to take to the skies as well, while in the meantime the rest of the group rested from their adventure. There was still the question of what their next move was going to be, but Twilight was largely convinced they had to proceed to the Abyss itself and confront Charybdis in her own lair. With the Treasury at their command, getting there would be the easy part, and there was no reason for Celano and her crew to risk their own safety any further.
“What will you do now?” Twilight asked, genuinely curious. Celano provided a minor shrug, leaning against the nearby ship railing.
“Queen Novo paid us well to ferry you out here, but my crew eats like a bunch of hungry hippos, so I’m not one to stay idle when there’s coin to be made. I’ll probably take us back to Mt. Aris and see what cargo we can drum up to ferry. With the Storm King out of action, Abyssinia is opening up it’s trade routes again. The cats were always decent company, and generous patrons. What about you, Princess? You really planning to dive back into this harsh sea and take on those mad fishmen again?”
Twilight sighed, but nodded her head firmly, “I have to. Charybdis and her sahuagin must be stopped, before they cause any more harm.”
“Heroic responsibility, eh? Can’t say it’s my cup of tea, but I’d admire the moxy you and your pals got. Good luck with it, and try not to get dead, huh? Be a real downer if I read about Equestria losing a Princess in the papers.”
A quiet chuckle escaped Twilight as she took wing, having long returned to her natural form once they were back on the surface. “I’ll certainly try. Farewell, Captain Celano.”
With that she left Celano and her waving crew to return to the top deck of the Treasury, where her friends were waiting for her alongside a rather disgruntled looking Tempest Shadow and Grubber, who was twirling around the trident that had been taken from Morgawr.
“Will you stop playing with that thing?” Tempest snorted at Grubber, “I didn’t hoof it to you so you could treat it like a foal’s toy.”
“Nah, boss lady, you gave it to me so I could see if I recognized the metal it’s made from,” Grubber said, grinning one of his wide, toothy grins as he handled the weapon with surprising dexterity for one of his rotund nature. He finished a spin and gazed along the trident’s length with a critical eye, “Think maybe I’ve seen this stuff before.”
“Really?” Twilight asked, alighting upon the deck, nodding to her friends before gazing at Grubber and Tempest, “Where?”
Grubber pointed at Tempest, reversing his grip on the trident so she could take it with the crook of her foreleg, “Remember when the old boss was having us run around looking for ways to counter the power of Equestria’s big bad alicorns?”
Tempest frowned, casting a wary glance at Twilight, “Yeah. Storm King knew they’d be too strong to take head on without some kind of trump card. What’s your point? We didn’t find anything.”
Was it just Twilight’s imagination, or did something about the way Tempest said that seem strange? Before she could put her hoof on it, Grubber tapped the trident with a claw, making it give off a peculiar ringing noise, “Well when we were hunting around, I ran across an Abyssinian merchant who wanted to sell me this hunk of rock. Had a similar blackish green color, just like this trident. Cat swore up and down the rock made magic fizz out around it.”
“Is that so?” Tempest said, eyeing the trident, “Why didn’t you grab it?”
Grubber threw up his hands, “Eh, the cat didn’t have any proof of his claim, other than to make a few magic lights puff out around the rock. Didn’t strike me as alicorn busting material. Didn’t even remember it ‘till you handed me the trident here and told me it could counter magic.”
“Yes,” said Twilight, “But the trident absorbs and reflects magic. It doesn’t make it ‘fizz out’, as you put it.”
“Sure, but that was when it was a rock,” said Grubber, “If the trident is made from the same stuff, who knows how forging it into metal might change what it can do, ya know?”
“Hmph, that’s a shockingly astute observation, coming from you,” Tempest said, and Grubber’s grin only deepened.
“I’ve got depths, boss. I keep tellin’ ya. Soooooo, you ladies got a game plan yet?”
“Actually I was just planning to call a meeting about that,” said Twilight, “If everypony, and, er, everyhedgehogperson wants to join me in the galley, we can discuss our next plan of action.”
“Not sure what needs discussing. I mean, we just go bust down the ocean witch’s door, and use our swanky new powers to clean her clock and any of her minions that get in the way,” said Rainbow Dash, pulling out her swordbreaker Relic and giving it a few swings in the air.
Rarity coughed politely, “I rather think Twilight would prefer we have something of an actual plan, going into this next confrontation, Rainbow. As would I. Quite frankly, while these Relics we’ve obtained certainly are useful, I wouldn’t mind learning more about what they can and can’t do before we come to rely on them overly much.”
Twilight, much like each of her friends, had found themselves able to revert back to their normal, pony forms once they willed the magic the Relics had bestowed on them to return to the objects in question. They had yet to test out how to reactivate the transformations, let alone truly probe the extent of what the Relics would allow them to do. Twilight had heard the descriptions of their newfound powers from each of her friends, and some accounts of her own actions while Astra’s personality had been in control. She certainly desired to experiment with the mace more and what, precisely, her capabilities while in an Inheritor State were. Inheritor State... it wasn’t a flashy name, but it was the most accurate one Twilight could come up with.
Her friends had been able to retain their own minds when in the Inheritor State, with only Twilight having briefly succumbed to the memories of the alicorn deity whose power had been imbued into the Relics. While Twilight still wasn’t one hundred percent sure, her best theory was that the Elements of Harmony shielded her and her friends, but it didn’t work was effectively on her because Astra’s power was higher than that of her friends. Twilight already being an alicorn herself might also have been a factor, perhaps making Astra’s power and personality more potent in her.
Given Twilight was aware of another case of an alicorn seemingly being taken over by another “personality”, the whole Nightmare Moon incident suddenly had a whole extra layer placed upon it that sorely made Twilight wish she had either Luna or Celestia here to ask questions of.
“I understand if you’re eager to go give Charybdis a piece of your mind, Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight, “Believe me, after what I saw in Aqualania, I want nothing more than to end her plans, strip her of her power, and lock her in Tatarus’ depths. If that prison doesn’t have an underwater component, trust me, I’ll build one myself, just for her to be put away in. But Rarity is right. We can’t rush into this. We need time to plan, figure out the extent of our Relics’ abilities, and honestly I wouldn’t mind taking a detour back home while we have time. I’m worried about what might be happening in the human world, and I left my journal in Ponyville with Spike.”
“Uhhhh, gals?” said Applejack, pointing upwards, “Any of ya’ll thinkin’ the sun is lookin’ awful odd right now?”
“Huh? What the...?” Rainbow Dash looked up as well.
“Oh my, is it getting closer?” said Fluttershy, her eyes tracing the path of the sun, which appeared to be gradually shifting it’s usual slow course across the sky, growing slightly larger in the process.
Pinkie Pie’s eyes rolled up into her head as she did a sudden face plant, only to immediately stand back up with her legs twitching about, “Oh! Owie! There’s stuff twitching in me I didn’t even know could twitch! This is a new one, but I think it’s bad. Like, really bad.”
“Bad how?” Twilight asked breathlessly, “What’s happening?”
“Beats me,” Pinkie Pie said, her usual bubbly enthusiasm popped like a balloon, “But whatever it is, it’s got Celestia’s name written all over it, and it’s not good at all.”
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Starlight felt the sweltering heat on her fur and to say it felt like standing inside an oven was hardly adequate. The forest was already being washed away by fire, and there was enough smoke in the air that if she were a normal human, breathing would be getting rather uncomfortable. She glanced up, taking note of the way the sun now grew ominous overhead, as if hovering directly above her confrontation with Celestia. The shining orb of fire appeared to grow larger as well, although Starlight guessed it was actually moving closer.
“That wise?” she asked Celestia, “If our sun on Earth did the same, it’d cause global chaos.”
“Your concern is noted, but unneeded,” Celestia replied. Around her hooves was now a pool of bubbling lava, the heat around her having turned the surrounding rock and dirt molten, while the rest of the nearby area was now charred, barren ash. “This is not your world’s sun. The magic that flows through this realm is unlike the physical laws that bind your own reality. It would have to bring the sun much closer to inflict any lasting harm, here. Aligning it above is merely to make certain spells easier to target without causing collateral damage.”
“I can see why you’d be worried about that,” Starlight commented, gesturing at the inferno around them, “Good thing there’s no settlements nearby. Bet the smoke can be seen halfway across Equestria by now.”
“A... regrettable but unavoidable side effect of utilizing my power to it’s fullest,” Celestia agreed, then what little casualness might have been in her voice evaporated as her eyes grew bright with magical light, and her horn, already wreathed in magical flame, became a pointed blade of sunfire.
Starlight had been preparing herself for Celestia’s strike, watching the fire enshrouded alicorn’s body for the smallest muscle twitch. Raw power aside, the most frightening aspect of challenging a magic user with so many centuries of experience was that they had a near endless supply of potential tricks up their sleeves. Say what one would about Starlight’s Zanpaktou and her collection of imprisoned blades, giving her a wide range of possible powers, it still felt like nothing compared to what Celestia might pull out of her hat.
The method of Celestia’s attack was simple but potent, as Starlight found a magic circle appearing behind her and sensed a sudden shift in the air as a kinetic burst of magic shaped like a giant, translucent white hoof smashed out of the circle of symbols and propelled Starlight with thunderous force. It sent her flying right towards Celestia, who extended the magical bar of sunfire from her horn to triple its size and threw herself forward, trying to impale Starlight.
Starlight didn’t have enough time to use a Kido chant, so instead took advantage of Chishiki’s unique shape, using the ring on one end to catch Celestia’s horn and divert it. Easier said than done, as it turned out, as Celestia’s physical strength seemed even higher than before, and it took all Starlight had to turn the horn of sunfire just enough so that instead of an impaling blow, the beam burned along Starlight’s side in an agonizing line.
The sizzling of flesh was punctuated by the familiar odor that accompanied burned skin, a smell Starlight remembered entirely too well from the day Sunburst died. Before that memory could creep too far into her head, she shoved it aside and drew upon her magic. While her skill in magic was limited still, she certainly had potent reserves of it both due to turning herself into an alicorn and the fact that the Hogyoku had been slowly helping her acclimate to the magical environment of Equestria, absorbing ambient magic bit by bit. A short range teleport was well within her ability, and she puffed in and out of existence in a flash of teal light. She appeared directly above Celestia, already aiming her own horn down.
She discharged a Cero, point blank, the dark purple beam enveloping both Celestia and the immediate area in a vast blast of spiritual force. Starlight used the momentum generated by the blast to propel herself upwards, making use of Flash Step and Sonido to get up into the air a fair distance. Expecting Celestia to be coming after her any second, she held her left forehoof out and quickly chanted a Kido under her breath.
“Bakudo Number Thirty Five: Toi Sakebigoe.” (Distant Shouting Voice)
Purple spiritual energy coursed up her leg and formed a cone of light that formed into a circle in front of her. A single dash appeared in it, the Kanji symbol for “1”, then it cycled forward to display the Kanji of “2” and “3” in rapid order, each symbol shrinking to fit within the circle’s diameter. Starlight spoke quickly into the circle, “It’s time. Begin phase one!”
She didn’t wait for a response. The Kido would transmit her words to those bearing the designated marks, regardless of distance, and she had planned this meticulously with her allies. Assuming they all did their part, things should go just according to plan. A somewhat large assumption, given not one but two versions of Chrysalis were involved, but Starlight was the queen of beggars when it came to allies, so she really had no choice but to hope for the best.
At least Equestria’s Chrysalis had done her job with Platinum and the pair hadn’t killed each other while out securing Starlight’s surprise. Compared to her Espada counterpart, the deposed changeling queen was fairly easy to work with. A tad overly sensitive in the ego department, and grouchy as well, but so far there hadn’t even been any death threats or talk about devouring souls, so definitely a step up from the alternative.
But regardless of how Starlight felt about either of them, she needed both Chrysalises at this point, especially with Firefly still out of commission.
The moment she finished her Kido, she cast about with her senses to try and pin point Celestia, only to hear the gathering sound of thunder and to notice a distinct darkening as light was blotted out from the sky. In what seemed like mere seconds a bank of thick storm clouds formed above Starlight and the surrounding area, and before Starlight knew it there was a torrential downpour of rain followed by pealing cracks of lightning. Hurricane winds buffeted the air, and it was as if someone had just instantly generated a tropical storm right above Ponehenge.
Steam coursed up into the sky as the fires were brought to heel by the thick sheets of rain, and Starlight found that between the smoke, steam, clouds, and buckets of rain she could barely see or hear anything around her.
No wonder she wasn’t worried about the fire, if she could conjure this up out of nowhere. And it’s still so damned hot, too.
Starlight didn’t have more time to ponder Celestia’s next move, as it became evident from a roaring echo and deep buzz of gathering electricity that sizzled the air just a moment before the rain wasn’t the only thing coming down in a torrent. Forks of lightning tore through the sky like a barrage of arrows, first hundreds, then thousands. Starlight was left breathlessly flickering around to wind her way through the onslaught of unpredictable lightning that did not seem to cease. The storm’s discharges of lightning bolts followed her like a wave, weaving towards Starlight with preternatural accuracy. Only Starlight’s own supreme speed and reflexes let her keep ahead of it all, but she realized quickly the lightning storm was herding her in a particular direction.
The reason for this became obvious as the storm briefly parted and angry orange light filled Starlight’s vision as she came upon a gargantuan wall of solid flame, no doubt summoned up while Starlight was busy dodging lightning. Celestia was at the head of the wall of flame, like some blazing demon of judgment, making a pointing gesture with her fire bathed hoof.
The wall of fire exploded outward, taking the shape of a charging herd of alicorns with glinting eyes of white. They closed in from above and below as well, the living flames so charged with magical sunfire that even the storm’s downpour did nothing to slow them and only added to their terrifying fury by providing a blanket of steam to make their charge even more like something out of a nightmare.
To make things worse, the storm of lightning was still coming at Starlight from the opposite direction. A wall of flaming nightmares on one end, a wave of electrical destruction on the other. What was a girl to do?
Starlight let a frustrated growl emanate deep in her throat, Well, I wanted to see just how powerful Celestia really was. Better start reciprocating before I actually get my butt handed to me.
She reversed Chishiki to point the Zanpaktou’s spiked end towards the oncoming wall of lightning, while charging magic into her horn in a teal beam of brightness. New as she was to magic, she’d been learning fast, and making a point of practicing some rather simple tricks that didn’t require a lot of power. In a puff of teal light, multiple copies of her own mouth appeared, floating in the air beside her. Suddenly both she and the mouths started chanting at high speed, their words strangely garbled and as her horn’s magic cast a spell that accelerated her speech.
With this, a full Kido incantation went from taking several seconds to being nearly instant, and multiple ones could be invoked simultaneously.
From the point of Chishiki’s spike a colossal wall of transparent force appeared, larger than a skyscraper. The Danku Kido was empowered by Chishiki and Starlight’s immense reiatsu to such an extent that when the wave of thousands of lightning bolts struck it, the wall held firm against the electrical storm without so much as showing a single crack.
At the same time circles of highly condensed water formed in the air around the other conjured copies of Starlight’s mouth as each invoked a water-type Hado-class Kido, Number Sixty One; Koi no Oroku Mai (Dance of the Carp’s Scales)
From the circles of water shot highly pressurized and spiritually charged darts of water shaped like flying Koi fish, each one moving like the high-speed bullet of a gatling gun. As these some half a dozen circles of water fired their barrages of fish-shaped water rounds, Starlight charged at the oncoming rush of flame. The circles of water followed with her, moving automatically to target the incoming threats like turrets.
These spiritually charged bullets of water cut into the fire-born constructs shaped like alicorns, yet these constructs themselves were no fragile things of mere flame but empowered by Celestia’s exceedingly potent magic. The resulting clash of Kido and spell flame generated a cacophony of explosive power that resulted in only some of the flame constructs being cut down while the rest struck upon Starlight in a charging fury.
She turned and twisted with godly speed, using Chishiki’s ring blade in glinting arcs to cut through the flames. Even so, there were so many that stampeding hooves and slashing wings of fire still grazed and burned at Starlight. Furthermore, some of the alicorn constructs that got close ballooned out like they were being inflated, and exploded in scathing, arcane gales of force and fire. The air was filled with a trail of such explosions as Starlight flitted through the herd, the water circles of her Kido never ceasing to fire streams of hammering water bullets into the mass surrounding her as she slashed with Chishiki in a continuous arc around her.
She was homing in on Celestia’s magical signature, which was coming right at her. She could barely see Celestia through the haze of smoke, rain, and flame, but Starlight was still able to target her Kido where she wanted it, and caused some of the conjured mouths to rapidly chant a pair of Kido spells directed right in front of her.
“Hado Number Sixty Three: Raikoho!” (Fiery Lightning Howl)
“Hado Number Fifty Nine: Hyoga Seiran!” (Glacial Vapor Storm)
The distortion of the chant from her own hastened lips added the full incantations in a blur of noise, and she felt an almost groaning shift in Chishiki’s spirit energy as it was forced to enhance two Kido at nearly the same time. Chances were its power wasn’t designed to do such Kido boosting so rapidly, with Starlight’s magic trick acting as a loophole beyond the Zanpaktou’s abilities, but she needed all the power she could get right now. She could feel the Hogyoku pulsating in her chest, the mysterious gem’s power soaking in the magic that was bathing her. Her Hollow reiatsu spiked alongside her Soul Reaper born power, intermixing further as the Hogyoku did... whatever it was doing.
Even Starlight wasn’t entirely sure of the Hogyoku’s true potential.
From her Kido chanting twin elemental blasts exploded out from in front of her, a spearing growth of jagged glacial ice combining with a huge bolt of golden flowing electricity. This combined blast came right towards Celestia, who’d been charging directly at Starlight from amid the herd of flame constructs. The Princess was encased in a drilling sheath of empowered sunfire, like a shard of the sun forged into the shape of a lance.
Celestia hammered the combined bolt of potent lightning and spearing ice, and shattered the ice like a styrofoam cup. Her lance of sunfire even tore through the lightning, despite the Kido being amped up well beyond the norm. Some of the electricity still coursed into Celestia herself, but if that slowed the alicorn at all, Starlight didn’t see it and she was left having to dodge the sunfire lance by rocketing herself upwards as Celestia hurled it forward.
The lance of radiant sun energy drilled through the storm and arced down to the unseen ground, where it detonated in a blinding pillar of gold fire that shook the air with waves of force. By Starlight’s estimate, that had been on par with an Espada’s Gran Rey Cero, and Celestia didn’t even slow down after hurling that bolt of power, coming at Starlight with her horn burning bright.
“Do you not understand?”
Celestia’s voice boomed like thunder as she thrust punches at Starlight’s face with such speed that her hooves blurred, and with each punch a telekinetic burst of force shaped like a larger hoof rushed out with even greater power. Starlight, for a few seconds, could only rush to dodge what she could, and block what she couldn’t. Each time she caught a telekinetic hoof with Chishiki’s shaft, she felt like she’d just tried to halt a meteor impact, raw force alone blasting the air around her to create clear spaces amid the stormy haze.
Her previous water Kido had petered out at that point, but her conjured mouths remained, and Starlight, while focusing physically on defense, began to counter attack with a barrage of varied Kido. She kept them simple, preferring volume over raw power, and needing to give Chishiki a rest for a moment. As she zipped about trying to stay ahead of Celestia’s relentless hooves, a swarm of numerous lower level Hado-class Kido blasting at the Princess in a multi-colored tempest of energy. Starlight wasn’t even keeping trap of what Kido she was invoking, focusing purely on throwing them out fast to try and break Celestia’s momentum. As a result everything from the blazing crimson orbs of Shakakho to the lancing white bolts of Byakurais joined in alongside elemental lances of wind, chunks of jagged ice, searing pink javelins of energy, spitting clumps of acidic venom, and a dozen other types of sub-level 40 Kido spells that cost little reiatsu but were easy to throw out at high speed.
Celestia powered through all of it with her magic, generating numerous different arcane shields at once. These concave fields of white, shimmering force spun around Celestia at high speed to catch Kido after Kido as she kept pursuing Starlight through her conjured storm. Celestia’s face was coated in blood and fire, her voice still booming.
“I’ve met so many like you. People who think power exists to serve what they want, rather than provide others what they need.”
She smashed her hooves together, and two telekinetic copies smashed down from above and below Starlight, almost trapping her as the two forces collided in a blast of force that still knocked her backwards. Starlight, chanting a Kido with her own mouth this time, spat the words out then shouted at Celestia even as the spell manifested.
“Bakudo Number Sixty Three: Sajo Sabaku! Was your plan to lecture me to death!? Who gives who the right to decide what power is for!? You use it to do what you think is right! That’s all you can do with it!”
A chain of golden spirit energy flew down and tried to wrap around Celestia, but she used her own magical barriers to intercept it. With a flex of eldritch power, her shields flared with heat and although it took a few seconds, they snapped through the chains of the binding Kido. Celestia then lowered her horn and made a rising gesture with it, Starlight hearing a distinct crack of crock from somewhere distantly below.
“That is precisely why anyone with power should not use it recklessly. The more power you have, the bigger the fallout when you make a mistake. It's like the old adage about omelets and eggs. Yes you must break a few eggs to make one, but the bigger an omelet you try to make, the egg you break may end up being the world itself.”
In a flash of white light from Celestia’s horn a tremendous amount of rock was teleported around Starlight, huge clumps of it akin to a floating mountain enclosing around her in a rush. The rocks, some larger than houses, collided on her in a giant mass, pressing in on her. At that point Celestia gestured with a hoof and sent in the last of her alicorn flame constructs, which rammed into the compressed rock cluster and exploded in a staccato of explosions.
Starlight fell out of the cluster of powerful detonations, her body smoking, and her mask cracked.
Yet she recovered a second later, and her hoof went to her brow behind the mask, and drew out a trickle of blood.
“And what if the egg is rotten? Is it worth breaking then, Celestia!?”
Starlight poured magic through her horn and spirit energy through her body, Hollow and Soul Reaper reiatsu both causing a distortion of dark, crackling energy to form around her. She teleported in the same moment she utilized Sonido and Flash Step, becoming such a frenzy of motion that even Celestia couldn’t predict or track where she was moving. Each flash of teleportation was followed by a buzz of unimaginable speed, making Starlight looks as if she was in hundreds of places at once.
All of this was to confuse Celestia long enough for Starlight to paint her blood in a circle upon the underside of one of her hooves, and gather the necessary power there.
Celestia had struck at her with a lance on par with Gran Rey Cero? Well, two could play at that game.
When fully charged, Starlight finished her rush of high speed motions and teleportations directly beneath Celestia, shoving her hoof into the alicorn’s stomach. There, a sphere of darkness pulsating at it’s core with an orb of bright purple light formed for just an instant.
“Gran Rey Cero.”
The resulting beam of power exploded outward in a dense wave more than sixty meters wide, and roared up through the conjured hurricane with such force that the localized weather event was dispersed through overwhelming wind and shockwave alone. Space itself was briefly twisted and disrupted by the thick beam of spiritual energy, leaving wavering tracks in the clearing sky, which remained blue and shining with the sun hanging painfully close above.
With the storm gone and the ground now visible, Starlight could see the fires had been stopped by the rain, but the landscape around Ponehenge was a mess. Stray Kido, lightning strikes, and the shockwaves of clashing magic and reishi had left the land barren and torn. Barely a tree stood for miles around, and the rest were blackened husks. The ground was muddy and blasted brown or charred. What was a lush valley not long ago now looked like a scoured wasteland, pockmarked with craters.
She didn’t let the view distract her for more than an instant, however, all too aware that even a Gran Rey Cero, fully charged by her spiritual might, was not going to be enough to take down the likes of Celestia. She rose into the sky after the wake of the beam, which still had traces of energy slowly dissipating from the air. She sensed the potent Cero’s course had not ended at the lower atmosphere, and had carried Celestia up into what she guessed had to be actual orbit just outside the atmosphere. She sincerely doubted lack of oxygen was any kind of problem for the Princess, and so readied herself for the inevitable counter attack.
A glance at Chishiki floating at her side left Starlight briefly debating with herself. Clover’s Zanpaktou was perhaps one of the favorites she’d ever grabbed, but the requirement of the full chant to get that Kido boost was a pain. The analysis ability, while also potent, was designed to work on spirit beings, not magical ones. It might work on magic, but Starlight wasn’t about to take a bet on that. Given Celestia had taken a fully empowered Kurohitsugi, and weathered a full on cascade of lesser Kido that were similarly boosted, Starlight was running out of options. She knew there were higher level Hado spells than the Black Coffin, but of those nine level 91-99 spells, she had only ever gleaned how to perform one of them, and even she couldn’t pull it off without the full chant. Worse, she sensed Chishiki was at his limit. Clover had probably never been strong enough in terms of reiatsu to even discover that Chishiki had a limit in terms of his enhancement power, but Starlight could tell... if she tried boosting another level 90 Kido, let alone one higher than that, it’d might seriously damage the Zanpaktou spirit.
Not worth the risk, she decided.
“Okay, you’ve done enough,” she told Chishiki, “Sekai, we’re switching out. Give me inmate Number 017. Hurry up, before Princess Sunbutt stops taking a breather in low orbit.”
Her words came alongside a building pressure on her spiritual senses as she detected something growing in potency up in the sky. Celestia was definitely still in the fight, and prepping for something big. Starlight couldn’t see the alicorn, but could certainly feel her, and whatever magic was being built up like a second sun hanging above the land.
Sekai Chitsujo briefly appeared before her, the glass maiden in the smartly cut warden’s uniform regarding Starlight with almost motherly reproach, “Have you considered that your equine foe isn’t entirely wrong? You do trend towards recklessness.”
“Tch, you and her would probably get along. Your both relentless moms. Inmate 017. Nowish, please.”
Sekai made a soft “hmph” noise and in a flash Chishiki’s ring-staff shape flowed away and then reformed into a new weapon; a massive morning star of dark iron and jutting spikes. It was near five feet long, with the spiked ball of the morning star being as large as some beach balls. The hefty weapon felt light in Starlight’s hooves as she hefted it, and she whispered under her breath, “Well Screwball, let’s see if your Kowareta To (Broken Tower) can throw Celestia for a loop.”
She didn’t have long to wait, as whatever Celestia had been doing up there came to an abrupt end in a blinding burst of white light and a sound like the air itself being burned by a shuddering hiss. Starlight saw a hint of white motion cutting down towards her, and was only able to dodge due to her own heightened senses being already revved up to let her see what was coming.
Celestia had banished the flames from her body, and was now wrapped up in bands of light that coated her hide like a second skin. The tips of her wings shot out white photons of light, and her head was surrounded by a faint, pointed halo. Instead of blades of fire, she now had two solid bars of light only vaguely shaped like swords flying at her side, while her hooves were covered in pointed bands of light that were like small wrist blades. The light patterns on her body formed magic symbols in roving curves across her, and her very flesh emanated small specks of light.
Starlight saw all of this in the instant it had taken her to dodge Celestia’s first attack, which had cut a white line right past where Starlight’s neck would have been had she not moved. This was immediately followed up by a corkscrew slash with the other light blade that similarly traced a path through the air that seemed to burn the sky itself, leaving a hazy trail of light.
As simple as these attacks were, the terrifying element of them was that each motion, from Celestia’s initial charge to her attacks now, were at a speed Starlight Glimmer knew was only achievable by the highest ranked Captains or speed focused Espada. This was literal light speed, and Starlight was only able to keep up because she’d known she’d need to achieve this speed herself to survive against the Zero Division, so she’d specifically worked to combine Sonido and Flash Step to allow her to get to that point.
And even then she wasn’t sure she’d gotten as fast as someone like Ditzy Doo, who was her only real other point of comparison. Well, Ditzy, and now Equestria’s Celestia.
She definitely wanted to ask how Celestia was doing this, but the next few seconds left no time for even a breath.
With each motion Celestia was a searing bolt of light, her hooves and blades tracing sizzling lines at Starlight. It took every ounce of reaction time and skill Starlight had to respond, hefting Kowareta To with her own hooves rather than relying on magic, which would actually be slower. And slower was something Starlight could not afford to be right now.
If she had any consolation at all, it was that she could see her Gran Rey Cero had at least left its mark on Celestia. Even the magic symbols of light couldn’t hide the burned portions of her side or the torn lacerations on her limbs, or the blood coating her white fur.
Not that Starlight was evading injury for very long. First she deflected a downward curving blow with Kowareta To’s spiked head, and then hurled herself away from a stabbing hoof blade. Then the second hoof blade cut in from Starlight’s lower right, scoring a burning line across Starlight’s left hip. The beams of light were as hot if not hotter than sunfire, raw elemental light and heat focused into beams that Starlight suspected would cut through almost anything, even high level barrier Kido.
Only Starlight’s own massive spiritual energy coursing through Screwball’s Zanpaktou kept Kowareta To from taking more than slight burn marks from each sparking contact with the blades of light.
Catching one of the magically flying blades of light on the morning star’s shaft, Starlight spun into Celestia’s guard, sliding the spiked head towards the alicorn’s chest. Celestia deftly turned herself in mid air, her wings no longer requiring any motion to make her move, but rather relying on firing photons from them to glide along at her insane light speed motion. It was as if she was teleporting without actually using the spell, her form nothing more than a white, incandescent afterimage of thought that slice out with one light beam after another.
Starlight kept up through equally achieved speed, nothing more than a shadow of motion. This led to time itself seeming to halt for the two mares, the world nothing more than a negative still image as they both fought at speeds beyond mortal reckoning.
The only thing working in Starlight’s favor was that Celestia didn’t know what Kowareta To could do. That, and Celestia’s complete focus on pure offense had meant she may well have not noticed that the copies of Starlight Glimmer’s mouth that had been conjured earlier were mysteriously absent, for Starlight had left them lower in the sky when she’d ascended.
What in normal, mortal timeframes would take five or six seconds instead took much longer from Starlight and Celestia’s perspective.
The two mare’s fought, and Starlight focused largely on wielding the morning star defensively, taking advantage of its size to spin it around and shield herself from Celestia’s blitzing attacks. She tried to sneak in a few hefty strikes where she could, but Celestia’s guard was as completely on point, all but unbreakable. Every trick Starlight tried to slip a hit in with Kowareta To was met by either one of the twin swords of light, or one of Celestia’s light-clad hooves. Meanwhile Starlight kept taking one glancing blow after another, until her hide looked like it’d taken a lashing from a blowtorch.
Starlight even felt the cracks on her Hollow mask deepen and the first chips of it starting to come off.
Buried in her chest, the Hogyoku beat out a quickening pulse, as if in excitement.
Finally she felt the spike in spiritual energy she’d been waiting for, a distance below her and Celestia. The copy mouths, like floating marionettes, had been speaking a combined chant during the seconds the pair of combatants having their light speed duel.
“Blood drains from the sodden Earth and turns to dust-”
“-bone curdles to stone, all air becomes still-”
“-awaken to the dream that does not end-”
“-That which moves, perishes, that which seeks, finds-”
“-Behold all that is equal under the stars, fall, and be reborn-”
“Hado Number Ninety Five: Jinsei Shukaku!” (Life Harvest)
As the Kido spell was chanted by Starlight’s conjured copy-mouths, she threw herself with all her speed away from Celestia, just narrowly avoiding a cross slash of the twin light blades that carved a giant X of light in the sky. Starlight thrust out the spiked head of Kowareta To and released the Zanpaktou’s power. Unbeknownst to Celestia, every single time her light blades or hooves had made contact with the Zanpaktou, a small portion of reishi had remained behind. Each subsequent strike, every block made by Starlight or parry made by Celestia, had invested another portion of reishi into the spots struck.
Now that enough had built up, Starlight triggered Kowareta To’s ability; Kuzureru (Crumble)
Upon the length of the blades of light, and upon a few points on Celestia’s hooves where she’d blocked the Zanpaktou’s attacks, cracks appeared. These cracks were made of swiftly spreading, intensely red light, and in no time at all the energy within these cracks erupted outwards in a series of spherical bursts that made sounds like a jackhammer on asphalt. Given these bursts were happening right on top of her, even light speed wasn’t sufficient for Celestia to evade them. However the bursts were not striking with physical force, nor even inflicting bodily harm upon the alicorn Princess. No, what Kuzureru did was not explode with damaging force.
What the bursts did was let out insidiously potent waves of energy disruption, designed to break down, or “crumble” other forms of energy. Normally this would be spirit energy, but Starlight had experimented enough to know that magical energy could be disrupted as well, otherwise she wouldn’t have risked using Screwball’s Zanpaktou in this manner.
Normally one as powerful as Celestia could have easily shaken off the ability of a Shikai from an officer of Screwball’s relatively low reiatsu, but right now Kowareta To was using Starlight’s reiatsu to power its ability. As a result, the power of Kuzureru was far more effective than it’d otherwise normally be. That wasn’t to say that Celestia didn’t resist it to a degree. She was the strongest alicorn in Equestria, with magic energy rivaling the strongest Captain’s spiritual power. Even so, the bursts of energy disruption, like a set of EMPs shorting out electrical equipment, caused the spells layering Celestia’s body to momentarily flicker and weaken, losing their cohesion. Even the fundamental magic fortifying her body against harm was lessened, for just a second or two.
The initial result of this was that the spell she’d used to give herself such god-like light speed briefly faltered and slowed her down, alongside her light blades breaking apart into base motes of light that hovered around her erratically trying to put themselves back together.
In the instant Celestia’s speed faltered, Starlight invoked a Kido, “Bakudo Number Sixty One: Rikujokoro!”
Normally such a Kido wouldn’t have been strong enough to hold Celestia for more than a brief moment, but the disruption to her magic meant that when the bright yellow planes of light slammed into Celestia’s mid-section, six of them interlocking around her, she was completely halted in place. Breaking the Kido would still only take a few seconds, but it was a few seconds Celestia didn’t have. Even teleporting wasn’t possible with her magic briefly fritzing out. The only thing she could do was hastily throw a spherical barrier around herself, as such magic was so simplistic in nature it could be done even without magic functioning properly.
And the barrier would be needed, for the Hado Starlight had invoked, the Jinsei Shukaku, fell upon her.
It began as a thick smog of gray smoke, dark as ash. It boiled up instantly like a geyser, and spread out and bubbled into shape. Ashen fog solidified into a tattered, fluttering mantle and hood. Bleached ribs peeked from the robes’ dark folds, and the mantle fell back as six skeletal arms revealed themselves. Within the hood a human skull bearing a gold circlet exposed eyes with no light in them. Rather than human legs, a skeletal, serpentine tail draped below the vision of death. The entire conjured entity was immense, some seven or eight stories tall, and it loomed over Celestia’s immobile form for only a fraction of a instant before it struck.
In it’s six hands sprang iron rods, from the tips of which crackled deathly violet energy that extended into the curved blades of scythes. The six scythes struck together, forming a cross-stitch patterns over Celestia and her barrier as they covered in her arcs of cutting power that ripped the air with such potent currents of force that even miles down the ground was torn apart in wide swaths, as if the scythes themselves reached that distance and gouged the earth. The specter was not down, finishing it’s combo of scythe slashes it raised its arms up and crossed it’s scythes together. The blades of energy and their iron rods melted together, blending into one combined, gigantic scythe that dwarfed even the reaper wielding them. It then brought that singularly massive energy blade down upon Celestia and her already cracking barrier in a torrent of power that exploded downward.
The arc of energy blasted the air and ground with another ripple of devastating force, Celestia and the barrier she was in being carried straight down until both she and the tip of the gigantic energy scythe impacted the ground. The resulting explosion spread outward in six different arcs from the central point, not only sending a pillar of purple, churning energy sky high, but rendering entire new fissures in the earth as the six crescent waves flowed out.
Starlight couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t even see where the bottom of the hole dug into the earth was. When the explosion's energies played out finally, the summoned, scythe wielding specter of death simply turned back to ashen smog and dissipated as if it had never been.
Dripping sweat from exertion, Starlight let out a held breath and started to slowly descend. She wasn’t about to assume that had actually killed Celestia, or even knocked her out of the fight.
However, before she descended even a couple of feet she noticed something odd, and her senses sparked with a sudden jolt of warning. Around her she saw the air teaming with additional motes of light, slowly falling like flecks of white snow. It took Starlight a second to realize that these motes of light formed a wide, circular pillar around her, perhaps fifty meters wide. On instinct she looked up, shaking her eyes with a hoof to try and get a clear look at the sun.
“Oh...” she said, seeing the expansive magic circle of raw, white light that had formed above her. Not merely above her by a few miles, but so high up it had to have been in orbit, around the same spot the Gran Rey Cero had knocked Celestia before.
Celestia must have set it up before she’d descended in that light empowered form. Or rather, set up the initial spell, so that the circle itself didn’t appear until she fueled it. Coming down to attack Starlight with a relentless assault of light speed melee... Starlight should have known better. Celestia had been keeping Starlight focused on her, all the while sending magic upward to fuel the circle. Those photons of light that had been shooting out of Celestia’s wings hadn’t just been for movement, they’d been transferring the magical energy needed to power up a spell.
Even with Starlight’s speed, there was no dodging, as the attack was already in motion, the circle generating a cylindrical barrier around it’s target that Starlight was already inside. She could try teleporting, but that still took a moment of time, one that wasn’t swift enough to evade light itself.
Like a huge focusing lens, the magic circle took Celestia’s power and the light of the sun hanging directly above to form a coherent beam, a pillar of light encompassing the full circumference of the fifty meter cylindrical barrier that connected the magic circle to the ground.
While not quite the same as the combined magical beam of the sun and moon that Celestia and Luna had used against Platinum and Firefly, this singular version of the attack was not without its own potency, especially with Celestia holding nothing back from casting it and concentrating the beam into a cylindrical barrier rather than dispersing it over a wide area.
The result was a solid pillar of light that smashed into Starlight and bored her straight down into the earth. The beam melted a fifty meter wide hole in the ground, digging down and down for nearly a mile before petering out.
The hole remained smoking around the edges as the magic faded, bits of molten rock dripping around the sides.
About half a football field away, the equally deep crater the Jinsei Shukaku had made with Celestia sat.
Nearby Ponehenge stood silently, the monument miraculously untouched by the devastation that had been raining around it. The only motion was the still occasionally wavering air as space itself remained strained and distorted by the unleashed energies of the battle.
All else was scorched earth, dead trees, and silence.
Ten seconds passed, then twenty. After half a minute it may have seemed like things were at an end, but then there was a stirring of loose rock at the edge of one of the deep craters.
A white hoof, with a melted remains of a gold arm guard, and covered in blood, reached up and across the side of the crater. Coughing, sputtering, and groaning in pain, Celestial hauled herself out of the hole and flopped onto the ground beside the crater.
She bore a deep, charred gash across her chest, the golden neck ornament that was normally a part of her royal regalia now missing as it had been shorn in half by the blow she’d taken. Her barrier had been broken by the final strike of Starlight’s Kido, and the blow had not left her unscathed. She sucked in deep breaths as she rolled over and rose on unsteady hooves. The rest of her body was bruised and battered, her left wing bent at an awkward angle. Had she still not been under the effects of Kowareta To’s power, she would have weathered that Kido better, but she’d also used up plenty of magic during the fight already, so her defenses had been fairly well compromised.
Still, she was alive. In quite a bit more pain than she’d been in for a very long time, but breathing.
Taking stock of herself, she began to channel a healing spell into herself. Without time and care it wouldn’t do much good outside of preventing some internal bleeding, but it was better than nothing. She glanced at Ponehenge, frowning at the distortions in the air around it. Not good. The prison was holding, but this battle was causing more disruption than she’d intended. Still, Ponehenge was an ancient site of incredible power for users of magic, and if needed she could draw power from it. Or use it’s unique prison, if she dared.
Would it be necessary? Had her spell finished off Starlight?
It was draining, using two forms of High Magic at once. Lucem Equitare (Ride the Light) and Intuitum Solis (Gaze of the Sun). She’d never actually had to use both spells at once before. The former empowered her body with the rawest form of elemental light, giving her incredible speed and the ability to summon blades of the same element that surpassed her normal flame blades. The latter was one of the solo components of the Instar Solis Lunaeque she could form with Luna at her side, the sister spell to Gaze of the Moon. While not as powerful on a large scale as Instar Solis Lunaeque, it could still be quite potent when focused on a single enemy, as Starlight Glimmer had just discovered.
But had it been enough to put the zealous human turned alicorn’s plans to an end?
There was a groan from the other crater, and Celestia hung her head and sighed, “No such luck...”
Starlight Glimmer was in similar condition as Celestia, dragging herself out of the perfectly circular hole the Intuitum Solis had created. Her outfit had been burned off completely, leaving her naked hide covered in burned, bleeding patches, and the feathers of her wings signed dark. Blood trickled down her face and limbs, and Starlight’s Hollow mask was no longer merely cracked, but more than half of it had crumbled off her face, leaving only the upper left portion around her eye and brow intact.
Standing on staggered hooves, Starlight looked at Celestia standing across from her, and she let out a bitter laugh.
“Hah. You look like hell.”
Celestia blinked at her, then snorted out a laugh of her own, “Shall I bring you a mirror?”
“Nah, I know I’m spent. I’ve literally hit you with all my best moves, and you’re still standing there, cracking jokes.”
Starlight’s words struck Celestia as odd and the Princess eyed her carefully, “Strange for you to say that. As I understand it, you’ve only utilized your Zanpaktou’s Shikai up until now. Should this not be the point in our duel where you unveil your Bankai, then?”
Starlight’s candid posture only got more flippant with a shrug of her wings, “That would be the go to move right about now, for any other Soul Reaper. Sadly my Sekai Chitsujo isn’t as convenient to use. Just as the Shikai has rules I have to abide by, so too does the Bankai have restrictions on busting it out. So, much as it would certainly be a great time to turn the tables with it, I can’t afford to. Not right here, in the middle game.”
“Middle game?”
“Celestia, I really hate to burst your bubble, but you’re not my ultimate opponent. The Zero Division is. If I’m going to use my Bankai at all, it’ll be on them. You’re the middle game, not my final boss. It’d be easier just to take the loss here than risk everything using my Bankai entails.”
A small bit of hope entered Celestia’s voice, “Does that mean you might consider giving up?”
“Didn’t say that,” Starlight breathed out, and with her magic levitated her Zanpaktou out of the hole behind her. It had changed shape once again, now taking the form of a long, slender blade, an estoc. The sword had a basket shaped hilt from which two forked blades extended, flanking the longer blade in a small V pattern, “A fight doesn’t always end with the best moves. Just the last one.”
Disappointment was plain on Celestia’s face, but so was her resolve as she steadied her stance and squared off with Starlight once more, “Your stubbornness truly knows no limits.”
“Must be an alicorn thing,” Starlight replied, and then looked at the back of her hoof as if checking a wristwatch that wasn’t there, “By the way, you got the time?”
“...Time?”
“Yeah, like, what hour is it? Feels like we’ve been at this forever, but can’t have been more than, what, twenty minutes? Twenty five?”
Celestia’s jaw tightened, her eyes closing dangerously as she most certainly did not like this turn in the conversation, “Why?”
“Nothing much, just checking that I’ve kept you busy here long enough. Well, that and whether or not it’s about time for my reinforcements to show up.”
The transfer happened with an abruptness unlike normal teleportation. There was just a concussive snap in the air, and quite suddenly Celestia had a shadow over her. A shadow that turned into a descending wolf’s claw, sheathed in layers of metal, as large as a pickup truck. The claw didn’t hit her, as even injured as severely as she was Celestia’s reflexes and speed weren’t so hampered she’d lost the ability to dodge. Still, the claw crushed enough rock to cause a small landslide down the crater Celestia had crawled out of, and she managed to leap back far enough to avoid that as she sized up what had attacked her.
She didn’t quite know what to expect out of Starlight Glimmer’s bag of tricks, but a gigantic wolf’s skeleton was not among them. The skeleton bore a brutish quality to it, as if the colossal wolf it had once belonged to was thicker, more burly and far more broad than a normal canine of its ilk. Furthermore the undead beast’s body was clad in ridged armor plating that, between the thick slabs of metal were bundles of ropey wire and cords that coursed with spirit energy, like artificial muscles. The claws themselves had added metal edges, and upon the beast’s shoulders were boxy protrusions that Celestia didn’t think was merely additional armor. The creature turned it’s head towards her, its face half obscured by the metal armoring bolted to it’s bone, even covering its eyes.
“Say hello to Skoll,” Starlight commented dryly, “Formerly a High Chief from the Beast Realm Tribes. Soul Society managed to get their hands on his bones long after his death, and designed some augmentations to turn the corpse into an autonomous weapon. Just one of many unpleasant projects Hitsuyo-Aku put together over the years.”
“A grotesque sight, and ignoble project,” Celestia agreed, although she gave Starlight a displeased glare, “And no excuse to make use of such a thing for your own ends.”
“You did hear the part earlier when I said I’d do anything to take Zero Division down, right? Let’s not rehash that. Skoll! Sic her!”
The programming within the devices implanted in the ancient corpse of the Beast Realm creature had been set up to recognize Starlight as it’s master. The very presence of Skoll on the battlefield could be further attributed to Hitsuyo-Aku, or specifically, the Crossgate. The power source of the Sokyoku had even the device more than enough energy to bring Starlight and her allies to Equestria, but it had plenty more to spare. Given the Crossgate’s designed purpose of rapidly moving forces around a given area, or evacuating civilians from dangerous zones, it’s systems could easily handle the task of instantly teleporting Skoll to Ponehenge. Starlight had gone over the specs of Skoll’s grafted armor and completed the work herself, with a little extra elbow grease courtesy of some basic Reigai models to act as helping hands.
A Beast Realm High Chief was a being on par with the strongest Soul Reaper Captains, and while Skoll wouldn’t exhibit the same power in death that he’d had in life, he would still be a considerable threat, especially with the armor’s augmentations.
Growling with an ethereal howl, Skoll spun around, brining his massive tail to bear. Clad in plates of armor as well, the skeletal tail emitted a wave of churning blue energy that cut out from his tail in a wave as he swung it. Celestia flew over the cutting wave, ignoring the shockwave of torn earth it left behind as she emitted a focused beam of sunfire from her horn to test the beast’s defenses. All the while she kept one eye on Starlight, expecting the other alicorn to use this as an opportunity to launch a sneak attack.
Oddly, Starlight didn’t move, simply watching things unfold. Celestia’s anxious suspicions deepened. Starlight had said she’d been keeping her here. That meant her other forces had to be targeting other places while Celestia was occupied. Thankfully, Celestia had planned for that, but she didn’t want to waste too much time playing with an oversized, undead puppy dog.
Her sunbeam was caught by Skoll’s left claw, the armored wolf skeleton raising the claw to shove the combined bladed claws into the beam to split it into a swath of smaller beams that melted through the rock where it touched. The metal armor, made of sterner stuff and reinforced by the undead creature’s spirit energy, only grew bright hot under the beam, but didn’t melt.
Skoll then focused on Celestia and the huge shoulder guards let out steam as their top halves opened, revealing sets of pointed gray spikes within, like missiles. In fact that was precisely what they were, emitting streams of sudden blue spirit energy as the spikes fired, becoming coated in a ghostly aura of power shaped like running wolves as the missiles flew at Celestia.
Celestia shook her head, “I don’t have time for this. Discord! Tag in!”
“I thought you’d never ask, my dear.”
The sound of fingers snapping resounded across the battlefield and the swarm of reishi missiles Skoll’s armor had fired all transformed into a flock of flying pigs that oinked in confusion as they flew about in a chaotic mess.
Even the undead, cybernetic monstrosity that was Skoll managed to tilt its head in confusion at the sight. At least until another finger snap rang out as loud as any bell, and the beast simply vanished in a puff of smoke.
Celestia, looking up at the finger snapper, said, “Now what did you do with the poor skeleton dog? Banish it to that awful sock puppet realm?”
“Oh don’t be ridiculous. Even I have slightly better taste than that.”
Discord slowly floated down from the sky. The draconequus and self proclaimed Lord of Chaos was reclining in a comfortable looking, plush sofa that flew on a set of bizarre wings from several different species. He was sipping on a cup of fresh tea, snaggle tooth mouth grinning merrily as he waved to Celestia, “I just thought my home could use the charm a pet brings. Fluttershy keeps trying to pawn one of her animals off on me, so maybe she’ll appreciate it that I finally decided to get a dog. Oh... thank you, Miss Glimmer, I promise I’ll give him a good home. Is he already house trained, might I ask?”
He twisted his head around without moving his neck to look at Starlight, smarm and cocky ego dripping from his tone. Starlight looked up at him, utterly deadpan.
“Was wondering if you’d show up. Figure it’d be fifty-fifty if Celestia would hold you in reserve, or bring you here as extra insurance.”
“The best insurance in the world, with very reasonable rates,” Discord said, snapping his fingers and creating a few copies of his own eyes that flew about on miniature, brown bat wings, “Of course I’ve been keeping an eye on everything. Not just here, but in Canterlot, the Crystal Empire, even Ponyville, just in case you were plotting something untoward there. I have to say, quite the rousing show you put on with Celestia. Very exciting. I was almost on the edge of my seat with that little grim reaper number you did. Why I might even say you might have had Celestia on the ropes with your little robot dog surprise. Too bad for you Celestia’s surprise was just better. Me!”
He snapped his fingers again, and just like that Starlight Glimmer found herself bound up in a wad of chains, so thick it left nothing of her exposed save for her head, with dozens of large padlocks covering the chains to a comical degree. Discord floated down towards her, rising up from his sofa and tossing his tea aside, which promptly exploded off screen. Celestia approached, albeit more cautiously than Discord’s brazen manner.
“Oh wow, looks like you’ve got me,” Starlight said dryly, laying on the ground and not even bothering to struggle against the chains, “Sure seems like I’m your helpless prisoner to do with whatever you please.”
“Careful, Discord,” Celestia said, “She’s clever, and likely anticipated your intervention.”
“Yes, yes, Celestia, I don’t require the lecture. She probably has some hidden weapon or the like. Don’t you, Miss Glimmer? So come on out with it. I’m a busy draconequus and don’t have all day, so spring whatever trap you have in store so I can be on about thwarting it and getting to more important matters, like catching the next episode of Moonlight over Manehattan. It’s the one where we finally find out who the real father of Sordid Affair’s foal is.”
Starlight shrugged. Or rather, vaguely wiggled. Chains, and all that.
“Hey, you’re the all powerful chaos spirit. What trap am I going to spring on you that’d do anything. I mean, you can literally just snap your fingers and poof, problem solved, just like you did with Skoll. Real shame you did that, he had chain-saw whips, chest mounted cannons, even a laser eye! You could have at least let him fight Celestia for a bit longer!”
“Eh, the fight was taking long enough already. I have no compunctions cutting this short,” Discord said, crossing his mismatched arms over his long, noddle shaped chest, “And I don’t believe for a second that you don’t have a last ditch plan to get out of this, so get on with it. As you said, I can just snap it away.”
“Yes you could,” Starlight agreed, “In fact, you’re by far my biggest roadblock in this world. I mean, Celestia and Luna are powerful, and Twilight Sparkle and her group of friends aren’t anything to sniff at, but you? Mister Reality Warper? Ooooh did I not have any idea what I was going to do about you. The only thing keeping me and mine in the game was the fact that you didn’t know where our base of operations was. I imagine if I’d shown up at that trap on the train, Celestia would have called you in then, too.”
“True, but as it turned out my glorious presence wasn’t required then. Quite a shame, really. It’s boring just to watch,” Discord said with an exaggerated yawn, “But now that we have you, I can wrest the knowledge of your clubhouse’s location and have this whole mess wrapped up by dinnertime. Oh, Celestia, you owe me for this, by the by.”
“Discord, we should go. I have a bad-” Celestia began but Discord waved her off.
“-a bad feeling, yes. When ever do you not? I think half of the time it must just be gas. You eat too many carbs. It shows in your, ahem, flanks.”
“Discord,” Celestia said again, but this time Starlight cut her off.
“Tell me something, D. Can I call you D?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fair enough. Have you ever actually been in a fight? I mean, a real one?”
Discord’s eyebrow rose, until it actually came off his head and floated in the air above him, “Of course I have. I fought Celestia and Luna in the good old days. Then there was Twilight and the girls. Not my grandest moment. Oh, then there was the time I caught Tirek, but I suppose that didn’t go so grand for me either... hmm... now that you mention it...”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. You don’t ‘fight’, Discord. Why should you? You snap your fingers, and anything you want just happens. You either win by default, or the other side gets the drop on you with some special magic, like Harmony or whatever. You’ve never actually fought anything before. Makes you very different from my world’s Discord. That guy, he scares me. He might not have your reality warping powers, but he knows how to fight, and has the power and ruthlessness to use it when he needs to. I’d never try fighting him directly without one hell of a good plan, and even then I’d be terrified to try.”
The irritation was clear on Discord’s vein popping face. His wounded ego filled his tone as he loomed above her, “I could not possibly care less about some other me who isn’t nearly as handsome, smart, or chaotic. And really, what does any of this have to do with anything. Why shouldn’t I just snap my fingers and turn you into a harmless bug, easily stepped on?”
“Sure, you could do that. But even little bugs can be dangerous,” Starlight replied in a cold voice, “Especially against someone who, having never been in a real battle, doesn’t know how to dodge.”
By the time Celestia caught sight of it, it was already too late to react. Something made of dark metal, tinted ever so slightly green, hurled across the area with incredible force, and from a position relatively close. Inside Ponehenge’s protective circle.
The object, a length of metal about three feet long, sharpened and shaped into a deadly javelin, impacted Discord’s chest and lodged itself through him like he was a mini-hotdog on a toothpick. He blinked at the offending object stuck inside him with some confusion, shakily raising his hand to snap his fingers. Only when he did so... nothing happened.
In fact, the chains around Starlight Glimmer vanished like they’d never been there, as did Discord’s summoned flying sofa. And his flying eyes. Not just from the battlefield, but all over Equestria.
Eyes, both Discord and Celestia’s, in combined shock, looked towards Ponehenge. The air there wavered as a creature appeared, a large chameleon-like lizard of black scales and green stripes, but with an overly long set of arms with corded muscles built for throwing. Those arms were coated in green magic, enhancement magic, designed to boost physical strength. The lizard’s scales blended in with the surrounding area, having rendered it invisible until it had moved. Celestia recognized the species as being completely non-native to Equestria, but even then she already knew that this wasn’t what it appeared to be before the beast was enveloped by a burst of emerald flames.
From the flames stood Queen Chrysalis, her right arm clad in the organic armor of her Bakkoto, and in her other arm holding another dark javelin forged of anti-magic metal. The statuesque changeling wore an expression of supreme satisfaction as she locked eyes with the impaled Discord, “Sorry to cut your impending victory short, Lord of Chaos, but I did owe you for the role you played in ruining my life. I trust you remember my throne’s effect on your magic?”
Starlight Glimmer was impressed. Not just with Chrysalis's accurate sneak attack, as the changeling could turn into any animal she wanted, including ones with exceptional throwing ability and natural stealth, but with the fact that the anti-magic javelin worked so well. This was by far the biggest gamble of her plan. Sure, Chrysalis had said her throne could negate magic over an area, including magic as powerful as Discords, but that throne had been one huge hunk of anti-magic rock. Platinum and Chrysalis had returned from their trip with fragments of the same meteor the throne had been made from, after extensive searching across the southern hemisphere. But there had been no time for tests, experimentation, or fashioning any kind of elaborate weapon. Starlight had just used Hitsuyo-Aku's labs to rapidly fashion the meteorite fragments into a few sharp, pointy sticks. She'd then entrusted the two she'd had time to make to Chrysalis, with the plan for the changeling to hide a short distance from Ponehenge until the battle with Celestia started, then to sneak as close as possible until the right moment to strike came. That moment being either when Celestia called upon Discord's aid, or if it looked like Celestia was about to overcome Starlight. All in all, things had worked out almost exactly according to plan.
Discord still appeared dazed, trying to grab the javelin, only for his hands to come away coated in blood that he blinked at like a curious child, “Bleeding? That’s a new one. Ooh, I feel a tad woozy in the head. Celestia is this normal?”
It was clear his mind was in shock and not precisely firing on all cylinders, and Celestia was much faster to overcome her own shock and started to move towards him while simultaneously reaching with her magic into the hidden pocket of arcane subspace she’d created to hide her next ace in the hole.
Starlight, however, had already been taking action, taking full advantage of the brief moment of shock that had left both Discord and Celestia briefly inactive. Starlight rushed forward while swimming the estoc in a flashing arc. She barreled into Discord, while the blade itself went past him and there was a screeching noise as the Zanpaktou’s edge appeared to rip a hole in the air, a hole that Starlight tackled Discord through just a second before Celestia could reach him.
Celestia cursed under her breath and looked towards Chrysalis, and saw that the same hole that Starlight’s Zanpaktou had cut in space had a duplicate that had appeared next to the changeling, depositing both Starlight and Discord there.
“Good aim, Chrysalis,” Starlight said, gripping the now powerless Discord with her magic and examining his wound as he let out a grunt of pain from the handling, “You did remember I told you the plan wasn’t to kill him, right?”
Chrysalis fluttered her bug wings and gave an unconcerned shrug, “As if I know where the vital organs in a chaos spirit are. I didn’t aim for the neck or head, that’s close enough. It was a challenge just to sneak close enough for a decent shot while you and Celestia were tearing apart the landscape! I nearly died three or four times from stray shots alone!”
Starlight nodded in acquiescence, “Fair point. I’m just glad we were able to draw Discord out of the woodwork, otherwise half of this operation would’ve been a bust. Speaking of which...”
She reached out her hoof, “Bakudo Number Thirty Five: Toi Sakebigoe. Discord’s down, folks! Begin phase two!”
The same circle of light appeared, with it’s flashing numbers of kanji, projecting Starlight’s voice to certain designated individuals. Celestia, observing this as she her own mind worked upon her next move, called out, “Discord, talk to me. Are you okay?”
Discord couldn’t move at this juncture, held fast by Starlight’s magic, but he turned a weak smile towards Celestia, his voice strained, “I... have a stupid magic canceling metal stick poking through me. So no, not alright, Celestia. In quite an excruciating amount of pain, actually. Help please?”
“I will, Discord. Just hang on until I teach these two a lesson,” Celestia said, turning a scathing glance towards Chrysalis, “I knew you’d emerge from under your rock eventually. I see you did not use your time in exile to reflect upon your wrongdoings.”
Chrysalis sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a seething hiss, “Oh I reflected extensively, Celestia. Mostly upon how to best get revenge.”
“Like the petty tyrant you are.”
“Ahem!” Starlight cleared her throat loudly before Chrysalis could spit anything back, “Ladies? We can discuss who hates who more another time? We’re kind of in the middle of something. Celestia, now that your finger snapping, overpowered boyfriend is out of action, what’s your move?”
“He’s not...” Celestia shook her head and hid her blush with an angry glare, “What did you mean by ‘phase two’? What have you done, Starlight Glimmer?”
Starlight suspected Celestia was already able to make an educated guess herself, but the Princess was probably playing for time to heal herself a bit more and recover her strength. Starlight didn’t mind giving Celestia that time, as Starlight still could use a minute to catch her own breath, not to mention give her other forces time to get things underway. The battle with Celestia wasn’t over yet. Sure, she and Chrysalis had managed to neutralize Discord, but Celestia herself was far too powerful to just leave behind, even if Starlight could probably escape with Chrysalis and their new prisoner. Celestia alone would likely still have all the power she needed to throw major wrenches into things elsewhere, so either she needed to be defeated outright here and now, or still kept occupied long enough for the rest of the operation to succeed.
“What have I done? I’m sure you can already guess. I mean, two of Equestria’s most powerful defenders are right here, one of them neatly disabled, and the other with a hoof already in the grave. Perfect time for some of my people to go for a stroll. See the sights. Take a few choice souvenirs.”
“Ah,” Celestia nodded, speaking softly, “Then I was right. Fortunately I believe your subordinates will find wherever they target, things won’t be as easy for them as they think. As for you two... I did not desire this outcome. I’d hoped to subdue you without resorting to this extreme, but I see now I’ve been naïve to believe otherwise.”
The air next to her rippled like water, and from it an object floated out. A worn, ancient blade, broken halfway up it’s length. The hilt had a symbol engraved upon it, a circle that was half moon and half sun, split down the middle. The moment Celestia withdrew the broken blade she held it inverted in front of her and placed her horn upon it. A flare of light from her horn revealed a set of golden chains of magic encircling the sword, a symbol that started to crack.
As this happened, Chrysalis let out a groan and put a hoof to her head, causing Starlight to glance at her in worry, “Chrysalis? What’s wrong? What is that?”
“I...I don’t know! Argh, my head! Stop her!”
Starlight had no idea what was going on, but she could sense an immense amount of pressure filling the air as Celestia started to break whatever seal existed upon that seemingly simple relic. She started to chant a Kido, hoping to pummel Celestia before she finished, but was a moment too late. Before she’d even gotten a couple of words out, there was a sound like a glacial ice shelf cracking, and the symbol of chains around the broken sword broke and dispersed into dust.
Then everything was enveloped in pure gold light more intense than the sun itself.