As everyone emerged from the portal of light, the group took in what they saw. The difference was like comparing a stone to a computer, as that was what the area they had walked into looked like.
The walls were plated with gray and lavender-colored metal with what appeared to be numerous monitors displaying countless tiny lines of binary code. The floors were composed of hexagonal tiling with parts of it being invisible. Sophia checked, and found that she could step on the invisible parts. Through the invisible tiles, everyone could see, strangely enough, tree roots with streams of binary code flowing along the root system.
“So this is the connecting corridor?” Fayt asked. “You called it a Firewall?”
Twilight nodded. “It may not look like some sort of wall like you would expect in a cybernetic realm, but this place contains a lot of traps and roaming monsters meant to drive away or eliminate intruders.”
“What’s with the plant stuff beneath us?” Cliff asked.
“The Eternal Sphere was created when we harnessed the wild magic of the Everfree Forest. The magic itself is bonded to this realm and acts as a data control center that takes inputs from our realm and directs it where it is needed in the Eternal Sphere. With this system being composed of wild magic, not even Crystal can control the tree that serves as the heart of this dimension. However, she can still send data through the roots like everyone else.”
The room they were in had three doors: one to the left, one in front of them, and one to their right. The group decided to take the left door first and ended up in a hallway. Roaming that hallway was a trio of strangely dressed people whose attire looked like something out of seventeenth or eighteenth century Earth. They wore black cloaks and dressed like noble vigilantes while carrying rapiers and wore masks and tricorne hats.
Twilight analyzed the beings in front of her and her eyes widened when she realized what type of monsters they were. “Be careful guys, they know some impressive polymorph spells. They could turn you into vegetables or harmless animals and attack you while you’re helpless.”
However, while they were listening to Twilight’s explanation, one of the ridiculers, as they were called, got close enough to Sophia and transformed her into a small bunny.
“Sophia!” Fayt shouted.
As the ridiculer attempted to stab Sophia with his rapier, he didn’t expect the bunny to develop razor-sharp teeth and jump up to the humanoid monster’s face and begin brutally biting his face. The panicked ridiculer tried to grab the bunny but it was rapidly moving all over his body and ripping into his flesh with her sharp, pointy teeth. The ridiculer screamed in agony as Sophia brutally maimed him and covered herself in the humanoid monster’s blood. Eventually, Sophia bit the ridiculer’s head off.
The other two ridiculers move in to avenge their ally, only to be unable to land a hit and occasionally stab each other. Sophia ended the fight by biting one in the jugular vein on one ridiculer's neck before jumping to the other and biting through his neck and ripping his head off.
The trio of monsters vanished and, thankfully, the blood as well before Sophia returned to normal.
“That reminded me of an old movie I saw that was made over a thousand years ago. ” Cliff said.
Sophia giggled, “Too bad they didn’t have any holy hand grenades, not like that would have stopped me anyway.”
The group continued their exploration of the area, which quickly revealed to be as much of a labyrinth as Twilight warned as doorways led to more branched paths and some led to dead ends. Some led to transporters that took them to another part of the area.
Other enemies encountered, aside from the unfortunate ridiculers, were mostly mechanical drones like the flying minigun drones, except that they were a different model entirely and were equipped with two miniguns. There were also incapacitator drones like the ones the Vendeeni used on Hyda and a blue version of the robo gunner military tank drones.
The drones were easily disposed of when exposed to ice symbology such as the Deep Freeze symbols from the casters, Fayt’s Ice Blade, Nel and Peppita’s frozen weapons or Thanatas’ icy attacks.
More troublesome were the beholders who were wandering the area. They were still tough opponents, but they could be dealt with easily when they knew how their attack patterns worked. Some beholders fell quickly when Lyra and Sophia rapidly slashed them to pieces.
Their exploration of the Firewall soon brought them to an area that contained a number of narrow and normal pathways, except they were being patrolled by transparent polyhedrons.
As Fayt started moving toward one of the dice-looking monsters, Twilight held him back. “Those aren’t simple monsters, those are attack programs disguised as monsters. If you come into contact with one of them, you will be deleted instantly.”
“What about those of us who aren’t made of data?” Sophia asked.
“We would get captured and ejected from the Firewall.”
With that in mind, the group had to take extra care to watch out for the attack programs as they navigated the labyrinth.
It wasn’t long before they discovered another complication to their navigation. They found that doorways with light blue coding would allow them to pass through them but doorways with dark blue coding were locked. Worse was the fact that every doorway they passed through at this point locked themselves to prevent them from backtracking through that door.
Another feature they discovered was that the pads that functioned as transporters in the previous section of the Firewall were used as switches in this section for the purpose of unlocking locked doorways and vice versa.
“Doors, switches, killer programs…I don’t know how much more of this my brain can take,” Cliff complained.
The group was forced to use trial and error to find the right switches and pass through the right doors as they navigated the labyrinth while avoiding the attack programs and dealing with the beholders and ridiculers that wandered around. They were forced to time their movements at some points to avoid patrols of polyhedral programs and advance.
They soon came across a large locked door that looked larger than the other doors in the area.
“Beyond that door is the entrance to Spiral Tower. We just need to find the switch to unlock this door,” Twilight informed.
“Then let’s hurry and find that wretched switch, this place disgusts me,” Albel said.
Everyone had to be extra careful moving forward as the paths were narrow and the width of the attack programs covered the entire walkway. Even worse was the one path they had to take was being consistently patrolled by several programs where they had to wait for a gap in their patrol pattern for them to get past them.
It took some patience, but they managed to get past the programs and discovered the path they needed and found the switch they were looking for. Once they activated it, they backtracked their way back to the big door, once more having to wait patiently to avoid being trapped by attack programs.
After a few minutes of waiting and dodging, the group finally returned to the big door which was now light blue to indicate that it was unlocked. With the problems of the Firewall behind them, they happily enter the door and discover the transporter that would take them to Spiral Tower.
As they entered, they noticed something being transported in. This appeared to be a bipedal mechanical drone that was as large as the robo gunners. This one was equipped with twin gatling cannons and appeared to have missile pods.
“A Viking Drone?! This is not what we need right now.” Twilight said. The drone then turned to the group and locked on to them. The twin cannons began winding up and Lyra yelled for everyone to take cover before a storm of bullets showered their previous positions. With everyone behind cover, the drone primed its missiles and fired a salvo at their cover, causing significant damage to the only thing keeping them from being turned into swiss cheese as the drone continued its onslaught.
Sophia and Lyra had to act fast before the Viking fired more missiles that would likely destroy their cover. By using their psionic powers to speed up their thinking processes, the duo was able to predict the attack pattern of the gatling cannons and dodge the bullets accordingly, as if the world slowed down significantly for them, as they rapidly moved toward the drone.
Together, they navigated the Viking’s attack and deployed their energy blades before slicing the twin barrels into two. Sophia then continued her assault by using her claws and Zerg strength to rip apart the drone piece by piece until nothing but a pile of scrap metal was left at her feet.
As the others approached the aftermath, Thanatas whistled in awe, “Yeah, I think ‘War’ would be a good representation for you to have, seeing as how you can be brutal like one.”
Sophia giggled, “I think you’re right, maybe one day we can find representatives of pestilence and famine to complete the set.”
Thanatas shrugged, “It’s a nice thought, but I find those other two lame. You and I can already deal the pestilence ourselves between your Zerg Virus and my vast disease collection. Famine is just a slow and boring way to die from starvation.
“I don’t mind having four members of the family designated as the harbingers for the universes that we explore in the future, but the current members don’t fill me with confidence that they could fill that role, unlike us. If we do go through with that idea, we should wait to see what new members are born in the future.”
Thanatas paused for a moment as she thought of something, “On a side note, my father comes close, but he prefers to keep his patrols limited to the ‘Disney’ section of the omniverse for some reason. I suspect it has to do with his powers being closely tied to that sector.”
The two ended their conversation there as the group entered the transporter and began the final leg of their journey to reach Crystal Silicon.
Crystal Silicon continued to learn how to work the controls of the Eternal Sphere’s master terminal, testing each button and experimenting with commands. She had to quickly learn how to use the system’s monster generator to slow down the tyrannical alicorn and her posse.
She was disappointed to learn that there was no way to access the prototype goddesses from the terminal before her and this was after she found out how to get the tutorial system working.
Still, she was making great headway in learning how the system worked. She was able to create powerful monsters to slow down her enemies. However, she knew that it was only a matter of time before they caught up with her and this thought made her grow more desperate over time.
In the end, the only way to access Project Valkyrie would be to obtain Twilight’s magical signature, which would be extremely difficult. She would have to take a huge risk if she wanted her plans to succeed.
In the meantime, she had another fun surprise to set upon her enemies. She could only hope that this one would give them a decent challenge.
“Go! Put a stop to the intruders!” Crystal ordered. The figure bowed and vanished in a flash and bang of teleportation.
Crystal then opened a channel to another location. “Are you two in position?”
“Ready on your signal,” Swift Burial said.
“You better hope your little gambit pays off, young lady,” Belzebub warned. “If this goes south, Swift and I will need to get off world fast and find some world where they won’t find us. Your head will make a fine compensation for our lack of payment.”
“Know your place, cretin!” Crystal shouted. “Just follow my orders and we will all get what we want in the end.” She ended the transmission. “Gah! I have no idea what the E.L.F. was thinking by suggesting those two failures as my bodyguards, especially when they got demolished by a couple of little brats. Do they not appreciate my genius? Do they not realize who it is that keeps us safe from being detected by the cybercrime division of the Equestrian Intelligence Agency?” She sighed and took a moment to calm herself.
“At least the boss knows my worth. I know we have little in the way of resources and I can’t use any of mine since I’m too high profile. Regardless of what happens here, my house will have its nobility status revoked and my assets will be frozen. Such is the price to pay for Equestria’s liberation from self-righteous rulers.”
Crystal’s studies continued.
The group entered a realm that appeared as a large number of glass and metal platforms that looked like the inner workings of a clock. There were also a number of bridges, stairs and diamond-shaped crystals that hung in suspended animation. Everything else beyond that was the empty void of space.
“Looks like we’re finally here,” Fayt said.
Sophia took a look around her. “Talk about a clockwork universe.”
“This place certainly puts a literal meaning to that,” Thanatas added.
The group walked up a set of stairs and began their exploration of Spiral Tower. Welcoming them was a transparent red hydra like the one they fought in the Sealed Cavern. Maria, Mirage, and Fayt teamed up and easily dispatched the monster.
A wall of crystals tried to bar their way but they were smashed like glass when Sophia utilized a partial ultralisk transformation and broke through with her enhanced skull. This process was used repeatedly while Sophia had some protection from her friends as some ridiculers tried to stop her only for Twilight to use her magic to toss them off the platform and into the endless nothingness around them.
Sophia smashed crystalline obstacles and everyone else dealt with the blood monsters, ridiculers and the occasional beholders as they explored the first floor and its branching paths. Eventually, they came across an elevator in the center of one of the platforms. With the elevator being as small as it was, they had to take turns using it until everyone made it to the second floor. Everyone waited until they were all on the second floor before moving forward.
On the next platform over, they discovered the next elevator and someone standing next to it.
This figure wore the exact same uniform as Twilight. Her coat was royal purple which was a few shades darker than Twilight’s coat. Her mane was billowing in a non-existent wind and was midnight blue with a lavender and teal stripe. She had the same body dimensions as Twilight, but her wings faded to black at the tips.
The mysterious pony finished casting a spell that created three pedestals with different colored crystals on them: red, blue and green. A purple magical triangle appeared over the elevator which seemed to lose any light it had to show that it was no longer functional.
The mare then turned to face the group with a wicked smirk on her face. “Aww, too bad,” she said in a condescending tone that sounded like Twilight’s voice. “It seems you were too late to stop me from blocking off your only way forward.”
Sensing some hostility in her tone, everyone readied their weapons. “Who are you?” Nel asked.
“Me? I’m simply a program created by my master to take all of you out so you don’t get in her way.”
“Is this some sort of idiotic attempt of Crystal’s to create some sort of programmed copy of me using the Eternal Sphere’s monster generator?” Twilight demanded.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘idiotic’ seeing as she designed me to be better than you in every way,” the mare gloated.
“Sounds like she gave you a personality that mirrors a certain showmare I knew a thousand years ago. If she designed you through the monster generator, then you aren’t going to defeat me in a contest of power. There are limits to what she can make with that system and you are likely the limit of its capabilities.”
“Why don’t you put your bits where your mouth is, Sparkle. I’ll take all of you on!” the mare declared.
Twilight smirked, “They aren’t fighting you, I am.”
“And have the rest sneak off and find out how to undo the spell while we’re fighting? I don’t think so.” The mare lit her horn and created a series of barriers to block the doorways to other areas on the floor. “All of you will be crushed by my power!”
Twilight briefly analyzed the barriers before she mentally communicated with the others. “Sophia, Thanatas, Lyra, Fayt, take the northern path. I sense three strong presences at the end of each path and that one is the strongest. Cliff, Adray, Albel, Nel, take the eastern path. Mirage, Roger, Peppita and Maria will take the western path. I’ll keep her distracted and, hopefully, finish her by the time you guys get back.”
“Huh? But what about the barriers?” Fayt asked.
“Don’t worry about them, just be ready when they go down.”
“So, are you going to come at me all at once, or do I have to take all of you down one at a time?” the mare taunted.
“First of all, did Crystal even give you a name, or did she simply make you and send you to stop us?” Twilight shot back.
This made the mare grit her teeth in anger, a reaction that made it painfully obvious that the latter was the case. “You fools may call me Midnight.”
Twilight nodded, “Very well, Midnight.” She lit her horn and fired a trio of magic blasts that easily shattered the barriers. “Go, now!” The others wasted no time heading in their assigned directions while Midnight was shocked that her barriers were shattered like glass.
Before Midnight could recast the barriers, she was grabbed in Twilight’s telekinetic hold and tossed back into the room with the previous elevator. Twilight descended the stairs to the platform with her staff ready.
Twilight wasn’t the same mare that she was a thousand years ago. While she still didn’t take pride in her power, she also knew what she was capable of and took great care to judge the power and potential of her opponents. Twilight knew what the Eternal Sphere monster generator was capable of at maximum settings. She tested herself against the monsters generated by that system when using her full alicorn power and learned that she could hold her own against a few of the strongest monsters that it could make.
If Midnight was created by the same system, Twilight was confident in her chances of victory, especially if her opponent was as arrogant as she sounded.
Maria’s group ran through the western doorway and encountered a blood hydra which Mirage pummeled with an Acrobat Locus while the Quark leader pelted the beast with her Scatter Beam. Roger pulled a risky move and moved under the beast where it was most dangerous and used his drilling claw to attack the beast from below.
Once the hydra was vanquished, they proceeded to the next room where they found a strange blue crystal effigy in the image of an angel.
As the quartet approached the statue, a summoning circle appeared behind it. Rising from the circle was a trio of harpies with red skin and black feathers. The tips of the primaries faded to yellow.
Maria and Mirage each took on one harpy by themselves while Roger and Peppita faced the third.
Mirage knocked her enemy out of the sky when she jumped above her for an Aerial Assault. The harpy counterattacked by hitting the klausian with her talons which Mirage managed to block and counter with a Triple Kick, sending the harpy to the edge of the platform. The harpy tried to fly above Mirage again but the klausian jumped up to meet her and pummeled her with her Acrobat Locus before slamming her into the ground and finishing her off with an axe kick.
Roger and Peppita had little issue with their harpy as Peppita used her Magic Hook to wrap her cape around the beast’s midsection and pulled her down while Roger launched himself at the harpy and stabbed her with the point of his helmet. The harpy grabbed Roger and threw him on the floor which distracted the harpy long enough for Peppita to get in close to blast her in the face with an Instanto Blast. The harpy flew up to get some distance from the two which gave Roger a chance to pull out his shield and fire a salvo of missiles at her, knocking her out of the sky again.
Roger then pulled out a trio of small, possibly mechanical, creatures from his helmet. Two of them, a bee and a fish, spun around Roger while the third, a spinning bug, flew up to the harpy and started dropping bombs on her which aggravated the beast and made her ignore Peppita in favor of going after the smaller enemy. This ended up with the harpy getting blasted by a laser from the bee’s stinger and slapped several times by the fish.
The biggest mistake the harpy made was ignoring the velbaysian with a large hammer that flattened her into the floor.
Maria faced her harpy by herself. When the avian tried to dive bomb her, Maria jumped away. While the harpy was recovering from her attack, Maria unleashed an upward shockwave with her Crescent Locus which knocked the harpy into the air. The harpy started channeling an ice element into her talons and attempted to freeze Maria solid. The avian wasn’t counting on the Quark leader suddenly releasing a number of tiny drones that flew through the air around her before opening like flowers and blasted the harpy with a number of lasers, sending her to the floor again. Maria finished her enemy off with a Gravity Bullet which tore the harpy apart from inside a gravity well.
Once the three harpies were dead, the blue crystal effigy dimmed and became inert.
Cliff’s group, which was composed of himself, Nel, Adray and Albel, ran through the eastern path toward whatever was powering the mechanism that was powering the lock on the elevator. On the way, they had to slash through a wall of crystals using Albel and Adray’s sharpened katanas. They also had to deal with a beholder, which proved more challenging without the rest of the group with them.
Thankfully, the beholders that they had fought her and back in the Firewall were not as resistant to elements as the first few beholders that they fought. Adray unleashed his strongest symbols to burn, freeze and electrocute the giant eye demon. Nel added to the elemental onslaught with her Mirror Slice while Albel helped himself to whatever life the demon had left with his Vampiric Flash.
It wasn’t long before they reached a red crystal effigy that was made in the shape of an angel. As they approached it, a summoning circle appeared behind the statue and a trio of demon hounds emerged from the black circle. The beasts had brass-colored scales with giant head bat wings that faded to bright green at the tips.
Albel pointed a clawed hand between each of the hounds with a wicked smile on his face. He was as excited as a child in a candy store. His hand soon stopped at once before he drew his katana. “I’ll take that one. You maggots can have the rest.”
Cliff then charged in and faced one of the remaining hounds. “I’m gonna pulverize mine before you do,” he shouted in challenge to Albel.
Nel had a hand over her face in exasperation and a groan on her lips. “Can you believe these two?” She looked at where Adray was only to find that he wasn’t there. She looked ahead and saw Adray charging at the remaining demon hound with a hearty laugh.
“I’ll show you whippersnappers how it’s done,” Adray said.
Nel groaned once more, “Men…” She pulled out her daggers and charged into the fray.
Albel made sure to avoid the front of the hound and assaulted the sides of his demon hound with his katana. The beast snapped toward Albel and breathed fire in his direction. Albel jumped away and launched multiple Air Slash shockwaves on the ground in rapid succession. The multiple waves hit the beast who was too slow to dodge and was knocked on his side for a brief moment before it jumped back onto its feet and leaped toward Albel, fangs primed to bite into the swordsman’s flesh. Albel countered this with an upward slash quickly followed by a downward slash that left deep cuts on the beast’s jaw and skull.
The swordsman continued his onslaught with his metal hand by slashing more deep cuts all over the beast’s body. He finished his enemy off with an energy blast from his metal palm.
Cliff started off his fight with a full body charge that impacted on the demon hound’s face, but that opener only served to quickly get Cliff into melee range so he could rapidly pummel the beast in the face with his fists. Before the demon beast could get the chance to make its own move, Cliff decided to give his feet a chance to beat up the demon as well as the klausian followed up with a series of wide, sweeping kicks that created numerous cracks on the beast’s scaled body.
Cliff’s brutal combo didn’t end there as one of his kicks struck the beast in the chest and knocked the wind out of it, forcing it to release a burst of flame harmlessly in one direction.
“Holdin’ out ‘till I got tired? Not a chance!” Cliff yelled as he grabbed the demon by the tail and slammed it hard onto the floor before he jumped up, interlocked his fists and slammed hard on the beast’s stomach with his Hammer of Might technique. He then jumped into the air again and crashed into the demon hound with an Aerial Assault. This brought an end to the beast.
Adray rushed in like Cliff did against the remaining hound and opened up by slamming it with a magically charged tackle in the form of his Chaos Tide. Nel provided assistance by throwing a large shuriken that shredded some of the beast’s scales. Adray took his turn by crushing the beast under a giant fist that he summoned.
The demon beast opened its mouth to breathe fire on the two, but Nel was ready for that as she threw a series of Ice Daggers that froze the inside of the beast’s mouth. The demon had to use its breath to thaw the ice that was lodged in its maw.
Adray used this chance to open a rift and cause a whale to dive on the beast, taking the demon into another rift with it and causing the beast to ultimately either drown or be crushed by the depths of whatever ocean that the veteran opened a rift to.
With the three beasts vanquished, the red effigy dimmed, leaving the group to believe that they had disabled it.
Cliff and Albel argued over who killed their beast first all the way back to the elevator while Nel was developing a headache. Adray had a huge smile on his face, pleased with his latest kill.
Sophia’s group traveled a distance past a few platforms with blood hydras and beholders. None of them delayed them for any longer than a few seconds. They were the strongest members of the group after all.
After a few more monsters and the two templars slashing their way through crystal walls, they soon encountered a green crystal effigy in the shape of an angel.
“Is this place supposed to be the control center for an entire universe, or an art museum for abstract pieces? I can’t seem to tell anymore,” Sophia wondered.
“Whatever this thing is, chances are it’s probably powering the lock on the elevator,” Lyra said. “Let’s smash it and get back to Twilight.”
“Was it really alright to leave her to fight that program by herself?” Fayt asked.
“Don’t worry about her, in a one on one fight, Twilight will easily overpower that poor excuse for a doppelganger,” Lyra assured. “There’s nothing the monster generator can throw at her that she can’t handle while she has her full alicorn powers.”
The group soon approach the statue before they spotted a summoning circle. Emerging from that was a giant four-armed stone demon like the one they fought in the Mosel Ruins.
“I’m getting some deja vu vibes,” Sophia said, remembering that another demon like this one was fought with the same people as back then.
Fayt already had his Divine Blade active for the fight and Lyra had her energy blades ready to go. The two charged at the demon, ready for another intense fight.
“Mind if I handle the speedy kill this time?” Sophia asked Thanatas.
“Go right ahead, I want to see more of what you can do.”
Sophia nodded before she pointed the fingers of her left hand at the demon. While the creature was fighting Fayt and Lyra, it roared at them in challenge.
That roar would be its undoing.
A large tentacle extended into the demon’s mouth and continued to extend inside of its body, branching out with growths along the main tentacle and piercing every internal organ in its body. The demon gave a muffled cry of agony as its insides were torn apart. The stone hide was pierced in many places as the now numerous tendrils wrapped around the demon and crushed its stone body to rubble.
With the task done, Sophia undid the mutation on her hand and made the large tentacle retract quickly until her hand returned to normal, as if the mutation never happened. Sophia gripped her hand a few times to make sure everything was functioning properly.
“You two really are related,” Lyra deadpanned. “You both take the excitement out of a fight when you’re feeling lazy.”
Sophia and Thanatas shrugged and backtracked to the elevator once they saw the light of the effigy dim.
Twilight watched as all of her friends headed through the paths that she had them go through before she turned her attention to Midnight, who had just recovered from being tossed to another platform.
“I’ll make you regret that, Twilight!” she growled.
Twilight gave her copy an impassive look, her horn glowing with a wide number of spells ready for whatever Midnight was going to throw at her.
Midnight flared her wings and lit her horn, preparing a number of spells that she intended to overpower Twilight with.
Midnight fired a blast from her horn first, but was taken by surprise when it was blocked by Twilight’s palm.
Twilight wasn’t a fighter. In terms of skill with a weapon or their fists, all of her friends had her beat in those areas. However, while she did lack formal training, she still received some pointers in self-defense from her friend, Starlight Glimmer. She wasn’t completely hopeless in matters of hand-to-hand combat, but that was enough for her to handle a program whose parameters were inferior to her own.
Midnight conjured a number of ethereal swords to skewer Twilight with, but they were knocked away by Twilight’s shield.
Twilight’s counterattack came when she conjured a singularity in the center of the platform that tried to suck both mares in. Both Twilight and Midnight put up shields and spells on their hooves to keep themselves bound to the platform. As the singularity continued pulling anything nearby into it, both mares continued firing spells to damage the other’s shields.
Twilight knew that both of them knew the Silence symbol which would negate any symbols being cast, but with the bombardment of spells the two were throwing at each other, Twilight snuck in a Lightning Strike symbol and caught Midnight off guard as a strong bolt of lightning impacted on her shield. In worrying about the spell, Midnight failed to notice that her counterpart was casting another symbol. A massive boulder appeared over the twisted mare and began to crumble, showering her in stones before the earthen mass dropped on her and shattered her shield.
Twilight hit Midnight with a counterspell that removed the enchantment on her hooves and sent the mare into the crushing gravity well. Midnight gave one last scream of rage at her enemy before she vanished. “This isn’t the last you’ll see of me!”
The alicorn banished the singularity and the enchantment on her hooves and walked back to the elevator to find that the three gems maintaining the lock on the elevator had vanished. She wasted no time removing the lock on the elevator just as the rest of her friends returned from their excursions.
“So, this is the best that Crystal can throw at us?” Cliff asked. “Heh, guess this means we’re the strongest in the universe?”
“Not necessarily,” Twilight countered. “You might be able to handle the toughest monsters that the Eternal Sphere monster generator can produce, but that isn’t the only monster generator that our company has. One of our most advanced generators is being used to protect the prototypes that make up Project Valkyrie. The Valkyrie Monster Generator is capable of producing far more powerful monsters that would keep any curious players from snooping around where they shouldn’t. They run on the same system that protects Project Valkyrie and Crystal can’t control it…not unless she gains control of the prototypes.”
“Let’s hurry,” Maria said. “This took up a lot of our time.”
Everyone nodded and took their turns going up the elevator to the next floor.