//------------------------------// // Chapter 47 – Heavy is the Crown // Story: The One True King // by JDPrime22 //------------------------------// Chapter 47 “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” — Albert Einstein Crystal Empire And so, two stood in the midst of a devastated earth. Like a world long forgotten before, now reborn into a new age, with new rulers, in a new home. Yet that rivalry never died. That evil was never killed, only locked away. Left to rest. Left to wait. As they fought once before in that old world power, so too did they fight now. A raging balance for control and dominance over the world and its people… even if the world and its people paid the price for their war. Flames consumed the ruins, of which miles and miles of it were spread. The Crystal Empire had become a skeleton of its former self, scorched to its core with pain, desolation, and woe spread from end of the Empire to the next. The fog shrouded the air and the snow blanketed the skies and the earth. Storms grew heavy as lightning pierced the heavens with its ghastly, golden hue. In the heart of the Empire, the Crystal Castle had fallen, only fragments and ashes of its prior majesty remaining. All of it, every inch of the death and destruction, slowly covered in a phantom-white frost. It was their war. They claimed it and raged within it. The world and those around them suffered now as they had so many million years ago. Hardly anything had changed. The flags were different, but the ideals were the same: Life against death. Freedom against tyranny. Fundamental aspects of survival. Once more, the world was left to wait and watch as the gods did battle. As their fate was yet to be decided. Godzilla had been fighting for so long, so hard, his body was pushing itself to its limit. He was so very weary but he just couldn’t stop. That immense forces within him mixed with his natural nuclear power clashed and fused, created something far too dangerous and far too powerful to be controlled. Godzilla was feeling the effects of it, his body beginning to break down, his mind beginning to falter. His heart increasing and never slowing down. He didn’t know what would happen if he kept fighting, if he released the power as he had for the MUTO. For Sombra, that was but a morsel, a mere fragment that Godzilla had let slip through. If he released it fully, let that power consume his entire being, he didn’t know what would happen. He didn’t know if he could even handle it, let alone survive. Then again, he remembered what he was faced with. He knew what would happen if he failed. That was enough for Godzilla to keep standing, to keep fighting. King Ghidorah recognized his valor. The one who rose against him before now rose against him again. Never did they truly change. Neither one of them. History had a way of repeating itself, but Ghidorah had no intention of falling in the frozen wastes yet again. In the blizzard of which they fought, Ghidorah raged with an unholy drive fueling his actions. His cries tore across the ruins of the Crystal Empire and echoed that of Godzilla’s own. His claws slashed at Ghidorah. His jaws bit and tore at Godzilla. They were locked in a deadly dance of superiority in which neither was willing to die. Only now, Godzilla did not stand alone. The world stood with him. Filling the earth, the armies of T.I.T.A.N. and of the nations flooded the streets and surrounded the cataclysmic clash of the two Titans. Leading these troops, the many generals ordered an immediate targeting of the golden hydra. Only after they were given confirmation from Special Agent Bon Bon and her forces. With countless soldiers, cannons, tanks, trebuchets, and so many other weapons of war readying themselves around her, Bon Bon looked to her allies. Daring Do nodded her way. Spike did in tandem. Lyra was beside her, meeting Bon Bon’s eyes and refusing to let go. To back away. To go anywhere except right by her side. And that was enough. Bon Bon gave the order. Gave it with a thunderous roar of her heart that was followed by the thundering of the earth around her. Tanks and cannons and magical blasts shot free from the ground, striking Ghidorah in one singular instant. The explosive discharge hit the Devil and caused him to writhe, to cry out to such an attack. Though, he couldn’t focus on the maggots on the ground. Terror fell from the skies when T.I.T.A.N.’s fleet followed through. Shining Armor led from the Radiance. The Radiance led T.I.T.A.N. and T.I.T.A.N. led the conjoined nations of the planet and the rulers of many. The brave and the free. The loyal and the fearless. They all came together to launch one final assault on the last foe standing, the last enemy that had yet to be defeated. So, they rained fire. Cannons and flames fell from the sky and struck Ghidorah. He shrieked. The attacks kept coming from the air and from below, with Godzilla unceasing in his own merciless, murderous rampages against him. It was growing too much at once. So much was happening that Ghidorah could not keep track or his focus on the one enemy who he absolutely needed to focus on. He felt it broiling inside of him, cackling in unhinged energy as the storm cackled in response. The chaotic forces he consumed from the draconequus were ready to be unleashed. His storm was reacting to his will, and King Ghidorah was willing it into action. It swirled overhead, the winds increasing and the lightning growing more and more unsettling. Tempest Shadow noticed that, her head shifting back to the clouds to see a dangerous whirlpool of energy hanging over the fleet. Hanging over Ghidorah. Her eyes slowly narrowed, the wind tearing at her mane. Bolts of lightning shot down, missing every airship shockingly and striking only the back of the three-headed dragon. It didn’t stop. Soon, all of the fleets were drawn to the sight of the golden lightning falling from the heart of the hurricane and electrifying Ghidorah. No one could explain it. No one in the air or on the ground. Even Godzilla seemed bewildered, but his eyes widened soon enough. It still wasn’t enough time. No one could have prepared against it, fought against it, or survived. When King Ghidorah rose again, with every last vestige of lightning falling from the heavens and fueling his body, he released it. He gave it all back. In a tremendous, horrifying display of power, Ghidorah shot out his wings and gave a roar that could tear apart the strongest spirit. His roar was followed by the bolts of golden and purple lightning shooting from the tips of his wings and colliding with the skies, with the Crystal Empire, and every life that surrounded him. His gravity beam attack defied every rhyme or reason of the natural world, yet he was not of it. It was fueled by the chaotic forces he devoured from Discord, amplified by his own alien power. Unleashed upon the mortal plain. His gravity beam attack tore apart the skies and ripped the sound barrier asunder. His chaos beam attack was felt by every last beating heart within the Crystal Empire. Titans that had broken from their chains and had risen again were struck down by those same beams—even the Titans that followed Ghidorah. Streets were ripped apart by those beams tearing through them, mutilating any T.I.T.A.N. force caught under the blinding light. Tanks were flipped like they weighed nothing, burned to ash like they were paper. Ponies and griffons and dragons all burned the same. They all burned together. Dozens of ships were blown out of the sky by the serpent’s lightning. The beams cascaded across the clouds in web-like formations, eviscerating anything caught within it. Even the Radiance was struck, torrents of electricity filling the bridge and ponies inside screaming, flailing, and holding on for dear life as their ship teetered out of control. The lead airship held on, however; the fleets around it did not. So many fell in crumbling ruin, as flames consumed their hulls and their bodies descended to the earth. Almost the entire fleet was gone in one single attack. Godzilla felt it, too. The chaos beams struck him relentlessly, pushing him back until nearly his entire body was consumed in it. He roared. He cried. He screamed as the lightning consumed him. And then, his body couldn’t take it anymore, and he fell, crumbling with the buildings that he crashed against in a smoldering display of dust and ruin. Stillness infected the battlefield and no one was safe any longer. King Ghidorah lowered his heads and hissed with sickening satisfaction at the terrible deed. Burning airships rained around him, meshing with the snow and painting the air in a mix of blood red and ghostly white. From those fires, Ghidorah truly appeared like a devil standing in his hell. Shining Armor had no other choice but to retreat. The Radiance had sustained too much damage, and the royal fleets fared no better. They evacuated the area while barely maintaining flight, leaving nothing but T.I.T.A.N.’s burning destruction standing in Ghidorah’s way to his grand prize. He slithered to his prize like three serpents upon the surface of the earth, hissing and flicking their forked tongues in growling hunger. Crawling over the remains of T.I.T.A.N.’s decimated armies, King Ghidorah finally arrived to his prize, standing before the remains of the fallen Godzilla. He hovered over his motionless body with sickening intent, with Ichi, Ni, and San growing all the closer. And Godzilla still wouldn’t rise. He still wouldn’t move to defend himself. He just couldn’t control his breathing, his body overheating as something far too powerful for him to control any longer was finally ready to awaken. Rising from the destruction, Bon Bon pushed over the burned sheet of metal from a destroyed tank that had fallen over her, that she had used to protect herself and Lyra. Daring Do flew in with Spike safely under her foreleg, the two having taken cover mere seconds before Ghidorah’s beam sliced through the road they were in. All four stood in the midst of all they had lost. They held well, and they held strong, but even they felt the gravity of the situation plummet when they saw Ghidorah moving in for the killing blow. Godzilla was wounded, lying on his side and unable to do anything to defend himself. Bon Bon’s aghast expression was lifted high, was turned around when she heard the flapping of wings behind her. And behind her, Princess Twilight Sparkle landed roughly on the same mountain of destruction Bon Bon stood on. She was trailed by the rest of the Council, each of them arriving via flight, teleportation, or however Pinkie arrived faster than the blink of an eye. All six of them approached the four, Twilight meeting Bon Bon’s eyes before being forced to face the Titans. Together, all ten stood as one and faced the heart of the storm. United as the only ones left standing to do what was absolutely necessary for the future of their world. Bon Bon made that clear when she said, “We can’t let Ghidorah win…” Twilight earned her eyes, holding as much strength and steadfastness in her own to say, “Tell us what needs to be done.” She did. Even when she didn’t want to—meeting the eyes of her wife and fearing for her safety—she did it anyway. She had no choice. None of them did any longer. And just before Ghidorah could sink his teeth into Godzilla’s throat, they struck. Twilight, Rainbow, Daring Do, Fluttershy, and Spike attacked from the air. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Lyra, and Bon Bon attacked from the ground. They swarmed Ghidorah with magical blasts and ferocious strikes and punches and kicks. The attacks from the Pegasi and Earth ponies ultimately meant nothing to the dragon. The magic from the Alicorn, the unicorn blasts from Rarity and Lyra on opposite sides of the street, the fires exploding from Spike’s mouth that hit Ghidorah’s eyes, those meant something. It meant Ghidorah’s attention shifted to them. He abandoned his defeated foe momentarily to deal with the last rebellious lifeforms of this planet. Lifting his heads high, Ghidorah cackled and snapped his teeth at the numerous ponies flying around him. They only retaliated by flying faster, Rainbow and Daring Do blurring their images around Ghidorah’s vision and sending swift punches and bucks into his eyes. Monster Zero stomped furiously across the Empire, hoping by some slim chance he would crush the insects surrounding his feet. Instead, they were too swift, galloping further off from his trail of destruction. Lyra and Rarity kept up the magic down below, their beams slicing across Ghidorah’s scales but causing no damage whatsoever. Bon Bon stayed close to Lyra, never losing sight of her, always watching to see where Ghidorah would step next. A magical blast from Twilight directly into Ichi’s forehead earned a shrill cry from the center head, an angered shriek that signified the king had had enough of their insolence. With a dominant flap of his wings, Ghidorah rose from the earth and began to hover and meet the Pegasi in their flight. Then, he flew higher. To their shock, he was flying over their heads, his shadow encompassing the entire world. Then, he breathed in and fired his gravity beams upon them. A furious display was rained from above, and all ten of them felt the wrath of the tyrant king. Those in the air practically wilted, flying back and forth in a rapid, fumbled mess to try and escape the beams while simultaneously surviving them. Fluttershy screamed, a gravity beam narrowly missing her as Rainbow Dash swooped down and tackled her out of the way. The two dropped like rocks to the awaiting earth. Twilight went for Spike, scooping the dragon in her forelegs and doing her damnedest to make it out alive. Daring Do followed them, her wild eyes peering back at the chaos falling down. The power of gravity and chaos were unleashed, the golden and purple beams hitting the world and tearing it to shreds. Whatever was left of the Crystal Empire—whatever was left standing—was assuredly destroyed in a wave of fury from the multicolored bolts washing over practically everything. Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie galloped and dodged and zigzagged back and forth across the street, dodging falling debris and gravity beams slicing the road apart all around them. Bon Bon and Lyra Heartstrings did the same, weaving between houses as Ghidorah’s wrath fell upon them. The entire time, Bon Bon never let go of Lyra. The entire time, her eyes moved from the street and back to the sky to see that haunting shadow of the dragon flying after them. It wasn’t long before the flyers fell. When Rainbow Dash hit the street, crashed and rolled with Fluttershy in tow. When Twilight Sparkle was singed in the wing by a stray gravity beam and thus released Spike from her clutches to spare him, the two of them crashing in the road. When Daring Do landed harshly but still landed on her hooves, only to have the ground beneath her blown apart by Ghidorah’s lightning. Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie shared the same fate. Lyra and Bon were caught in that twisted fate all the same. King Ghidorah breathed his gravity beams onto the road until he completely obliterated it. Only dust remained on the surface. Beneath it, a different, far more unnerving scene was laid. Lying in the shattered road that was burned to a crisp by the power of extraterrestrial fury, all ten heroes remained scattered. Unmoving. Uncertain themselves if they were even alive or dead. Black ashes fell around their bodies, their eyelids closed lightly over their expressionless faces. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy laid the closest, with neither mare fully awake but slowly coming to. Daring Do gently reached for her hat, her hoof moving over the fragmented crystals, before she finally reached her target. If only she had the strength to put it back on. Applejack shakily tried to stand, falling again and again with Rarity and Pinkie Pie all but losing consciousness. Spike crawled over to Twilight, shaking the Alicorn awake. Tried so desperately to. Her weak mumbles were an indication of life, of survival, and Spike gasped and clutched onto her. Just as Bon Bon clutched onto Lyra. She was bleeding, a terrible gash across her forehead that just narrowly missed her eye. It was bleeding bad, and all Bon Bon could do was hold her, press her hoof against the wound, and whisper her wife’s name again and again. There was a response, a sign she had lived, and Bon Bon breathed a breath of relief, felt burning tears in her eyes. She saw Lyra’s eyes move beneath her eyelids, a gentle moan leaving the unicorn’s lips, but that was it. It was all her fault. Bon Bon came to realize and accept that. She let Lyra put herself in all of this, face these monsters without any training or preparation whatsoever. And this was the price. This was the worst possible scenario. She looked around, saw those who had followed her into the fire. Everything she loved, everyone who meant something to her, everyone around her… all of it burned to the grave because of her failures. And now she faced the greatest offense to that… her own wife… Lyra… The earth trembled and Bon Bon lifted her head to see why. Landing on the earth, King Ghidorah washed away the dust cloud that tried to conceal them from his wicked gaze. He bent low, so low in fact that his chins nearly touched the gravel on the road. He grew so close to the insignificant sight of the ten lives before him that he could smell the blood dripping from their coats. He could practically taste it on his tongues, Ni growling softly while San licked his fangs. Ichi glared ahead, down to the only pony standing and growled at her. Bon Bon glared right on back at the center head, still holding Lyra in her hooves, refusing to back away or abandon her friends to the fate of this wretched Devil. She could feel the heat on his breath, see the evil in his eyes as soon as all six glared only at her. Death was the only escape now. Ghidorah had them trapped and there was nothing more they could’ve done to stop him. They tried their best, but it wasn’t enough. They trusted Bon Bon, but it wasn’t enough. Now it was just her to face down the Demon, face him down with nothing but her glare and her ever-resilient self. And that was enough for Bon Bon, enough for her to let Ghidorah know that he would never have her subjugated. Ghidorah didn’t care for that. Not anymore. All he desired was death. Ichi opened his jaws and growled softly to the mare he was ready to consume. She and all who followed her. Just then… something happened. Something changed. Her eyes flicked beyond the heads, beyond Ghidorah. Just for a second… and then she did something she never imagined she would. She did something that confused even Ghidorah. She smiled. She smirked… “Long live… the king…” … to his arrival. That confusion infecting Ichi quickly transformed, the center head sniffing madly and tilting his head back. He hissed at the familiar stench. He growled at the familiar tremors of the earth. Everything else familiar about him had taken a stark, horrifying change. Crystal houses and towers and buildings somehow still standing all came crumbling down. But not in a collapsing pile of rubble. Oh, no… they were melted. The sheer heat radiating from his body turned every last structure into molten rock. His arms swayed forward, each limb coated in bright white veins, his body consumed in those veins. In those flames. His gargantuan foot rose upon the earth and then crushed it, melting the entirety of the street into a pool of liquid rock. The power broiling inside of him consumed every inch of his body, pulsating and humming with untamed fury as he grew closer and closer. As the intensity of the heat only increased, and never died down. Until all the buildings melted and left nothing to hide him any longer. And Godzilla made his fury known by roaring into Ghidorah’s storm. His head was fully consumed in the white and rainbow flames, his eyes on fire and the veins devouring every last vestige of his form. It was if he was given one last breath of life, with the power exploding inside of him finally being set free. King Ghidorah hastily turned to face him, echoing a cackle of cries that didn’t even make Godzilla flinch. Instead, he dipped his head and let that power flow free. The white lightning danced up and down his dorsal plates, the rainbow veins across his spine rapidly changing colors as the pulses in the air gradually increased in sound. In strength. In power of the Elements of Harmony. Twilight recognized that power, lifting her horn in one last act to save her friends. Her magic ignited, and in a flash, they were all safely teleported away. Just as Godzilla erupted. The first pulse knocked the wind out of Ghidorah, a harmonic blast of raw heat and radiation and something even more powerful washing across several hundred yards of the Crystal Empire. Buildings and crystals were vaporized in the blast, a wall of pure whiteness shrouded in rainbows consuming everything in Godzilla’s path. Especially King Ghidorah. He raised his wings to shield himself, but that did nothing. The harmonic pulse vaporized Ghidorah’s wings, leaving burning stumps with white flames devouring the bones that remained. The Devil cried out, faltering and losing his balance. He fell onto his back, all three heads shrieking in what could have been identified as panic—perhaps even fear—before they unloaded a trio of gravity and chaos beams onto Godzilla’s chest. It did nothing. Godzilla was unfazed. The chaos could never overcome the harmony. He growled with unbridled hatred and never tore his flaming glare from his enemy. His body powered up once more as Ghidorah kept up the fire, doing everything in his power to stop Godzilla by any means necessary. Even that was taken from him when Godzilla released his second pulse, the rainbows washing over Ghidorah and taking two more things from him. Ni cried out as the heat turned his skin into melted flesh and bone, as his blood was vaporized and he disappeared into the air. San shared the same fate, screaming at the intensity of the blast as his eyes were the first to be vaporized. He was blinded by the explosion, his throat torn from him as his skin, flesh, bones, and blood were washed away in a singular wave of fire and fury. Ichi ducked his neck and survived, but only for so long. He twisted back and roared in defiance, never surrendering. Never giving in. Never dying! Godzilla roared back, and in his own showing of defiance, he reared forward and grabbed the jaws of the center head. Ichi struggled and writhed, screaming as Godzilla’s claws grasped his top and bottom jaw. Ghidorah still wouldn’t relent. He finally did when Godzilla lifted his foot and drove it down into his chest. He opened his mouth to cry, but the second he did… Godzilla opened his own jaws. Separated Ghidorah’s mouth. And fired an astonishing harmonic breath down Ghidorah’s throat. The white flames flowed down the towering neck of the beast, the rainbow rings circling them until they reached Ghidorah’s mouth. Still, the power would not cease. The pulses would not stop. Godzilla’s back electrified until it was consumed. King Ghidorah’s eyes were set aflame by that purifying white blaze. And in a third and final harmonic pulse, the blast shrouded Godzilla and Ghidorah in a ball of pure, blinding whiteness. The blast was seen throughout all the Crystal Empire. Throughout all the Frozen North. Whatever survived had blocked their eyes and took the appropriate cover to save themselves from the fury. Those that could escape did so. Those that couldn’t shielded themselves. An eruption tore apart the earth and vaporized everything for several hundred yards. Absolutely everything. And it kept spreading… and spreading… finally dying down… The white faded away and the storm had died.