“Boss! I thought I was gonna die when those caped creeps came after me!” cried Lemon Puff. “I’m so glad you came and rescued me! Who knows what they were planning to do to me!”
“From the looks of things, skewer you with their swords,” Cliff said.
Lemon glared at Cliff, “No one asked you, blondie!”
“Lemon Puff, what are you doing here?” Twilight asked. “I sent an emergency alert to all Project employees to evacuate the facilities. Why didn’t you heed it?”
“There was an alert?” Lemon brought up a screen and scrolled through it, finding the alert message. “Oh.” Lemon smiled apologetically. “I had my interface muted so I wouldn’t be disturbed by incoming calls. Has something happened?”
Twilight sighed in exasperation. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been out of the loop the entire time?! You’re not even aware that Crystal Silicon had been hacking into the Eternal Sphere?!”
Lemon chuckled awkwardly and blushed, “Truth be told, I figured that Crystal had been hacking the Eternal Sphere a long time ago. She’s the only one in Equestria with that kind of skill and isn’t you, boss. I didn’t say anything because it had nothing to do with my work here, and I figured that you had the situation handled.”
This time it was Twilight’s turn to blush as Lemon had pointed out her failures.
A bestial roar from the passage that Lemon came from alerted the group of a threat that was approaching. In a moment, a grayish blue giant crab monster appeared in the room. It looked around for a moment before spotting its prey and a number of other morsels. It roared once again and charged toward the group.
Lemon Puff reluctantly turned her eyes away from her boss and savior and turned around to glare at the crab monster. “Do you mind? I’m trying to show my savior some gratitude!” she snapped. She then pulled out a vial containing a reddish orange-colored liquid from her uniform and threw it at the crab. Twilight’s eyes widened while her pupils shrank to pinpricks. Without thinking, she put up one of her strongest shields to protect everyone.
The crab tried to bat the vial away which shattered the vial and that proved to be a fatal mistake as the volatile liquid within rapidly expanded and burst into violent flames. The flames raced throughout the room and into several nearby rooms, incinerating everything caught in the blast. The explosion caused the entire floor to shake. Nothing but ashes remained of the crab.
Everyone was silent as they witnessed the intense explosion. Cliff was the first to respond, “Uh, Twilight? Is everyone on your Project Valkyrie staff a psycho?” Lemon glared at Cliff again.
“Lemon, that was very dangerous!” Twilight scolded. “If I didn’t react fast enough we all would have been incinerated by your bomb!”
Lemon looked at Twilight apologetically, “Sorry boss, I guess I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.”
Twilight sighed, “Look, just stay with us until we can get you out of here. The project is compromised so we have to terminate the whole thing and destroy the prototypes before they can be used against Equestria.”
Lemon deadpanned at Twilight, “You gave Crystal Silicon access to the project, didn’t you?” Twilight looked down and nodded slightly. “She got access to the Spiral Tower and held the Eternal Sphere hostage, didn’t she?” Another nod. Lemon sighed, “Your compassion toward the digital beings is cute and all, but you’re weighing the safety of Equestria against the existence of an artificial universe.
“Even if, say, she had agents who could destroy the research data, we have backups in places that are in far more secure places than what’s here. We even have backups stored on data storage crystals that are well beyond Crystal’s reach.
“As for your friends here, while they would be deleted anyway, we can still restore the Eternal Sphere with the backups and they would even be able to live normal lives without getting altered by Symbological Genetics since that was a result of Crystal’s meddling.
“Sorry boss for my bluntness, but I’m pretty sure Crystal either didn’t think things through or she was bluffing. And you fell for it, hook, line and sinker.”
Twilight huddled in a corner in shame. She felt like a fool for falling for what should have been an obvious bluff.
“Umm…if you don’t mind me asking, how did you know about what transpired in Spiral Tower?” Fayt asked.
“I may put a lot of my focus on my work, but I’m not an idiot, mister blueberry,” Lemon answered.
“Blueberry?”
“I may not have the same level of skill with computers as Twilight or Crystal, but I still know how to use the tracking systems in the Eternal Sphere. I keep my mind tapped into them to receive auditory and visual information about what goes on in the Eternal Sphere. I focused on your adventures since they seemed to be more entertaining compared to what’s been going on anywhere else.” Lemon then looked at Sophia and Lyra. “By the way, you two could probably have read Crystal’s mind and learned if it was a bluff, why didn’t you?”
Sophia shrugged, “I knew, I just wanted to fight the prototypes and hope for a decent challenge.”
Thanatas placed a hand around Sophia’s shoulder and smiled. “Spoken like a true goddess of war.”
Lyra shrugged as well, “It’s been a while since I was really able to put my skills to the test. I’ve been getting soft lately and it’s led to some of the Tal’darim Protoss thinking bold thoughts, the Rak’shir kind. I need to keep in shape to keep them off my back.”
“What’s Rak’shir?” Nel asked.
“A duel to the death that pits two psionic warriors against each other for the right to ascend in status.”
“Sounds like my kind of fight,” Albel said.
“It would be if you had psychic powers, but since you don’t you would be the easiest win for any opponent.”
After taking a few minutes to cheer Twilight up and reasoning with a provoked Albel, the group began exploring the fifth floor.
Lemon mentioned that the monsters on this floor were quite fast in movement but their minds were frail. This led to the group using their mentally destructive skills such as the Klausians’ Aerial Assault or Maria obliterating monsters with Energy Burst which created more black marks on the already blackened walls as a result of Lemon’s bomb.
The group came to a locked door that Lemon opened with a key in her pocket. After a short walk down a hall, they came across Lemon Puff’s workshop and a four-armed stone demon that appeared to be wreaking havoc in the area.
“Of course the guardian would use my absence as an excuse to trash my precious workshop…” Lemon groaned.
Sophia decided to end the fight quickly by telepathically crushing the demon’s mind which caused the demon to collapse and vanish.
Now fully recovered from her verbal beatdown, Twilight gave Lemon Puff her inventor’s contract to sign. “Since you seem intent on helping Grape Vine with her project, you should probably sign up to coordinate with the other inventors.”
Lemon grabbed the contract and signed it. “Yeah, I wanted to help her out because this project seemed important to her.” She handed the contract back to Twilight and headed toward the nearby stairs. “Alright, down to the sixth floor we go!” Everyone else followed and descended the stairs.
As they explored the sixth floor, the group quickly realized that the monsters suffered the same weakness as the monsters on the previous floor. The monsters roaming the floor were giant bugs, snakes, scorpions and regular chimeras. Despite their ferocity, however, they were still vulnerable to the party’s mentally damaging abilities.
Because of this weakness their exploration of the sixth floor was met with trivial difficulty.
So far, nothing of note was discovered in their exploration until they came across a fairly large room. To the surprise of the group, except Twilight who had an expression of horror on her face, a young girl stood at the other end of the room. She appeared human except she had pony ears. Her hair was long and grayish blue. She wore a purple jacket blouse lined with gold and a white skirt, also lined with gold. Her light gray boots were also lined with gold.
Sophia saw the look on Twilight’s face. “So you want to introduce her to the class, professor?” she snarked.
“This is no laughing matter,” Twilight said. “That’s Lenneth, she’s supposed to be guarding the Ethereal Queen. Despite being a guardian, her abilities and stats rival the prototypes.”
That was when the guardian spoke, “There is no need to concern yourself with me yet, intruders, but I advise you all to abandon your hunt for the gods. If you seek to continue this quest, know that I shall crush you all. Here is a sample of what awaits you.”
Lenneth manifested a large ornate spear that was almost twice as big as her. She took hold of the spear…
…and fell over because the spear was a little too large for her. Some of the group looked at the girl in pity because of that.
Lenneth shrank the spear a little and got back up. She then raised her spear into the air and the tip of the spear emitted a black radiance. “Rise from the underworld, my grim champion!”
A familiar summoning circle appeared in the center of the room and a knight on an air dragon slowly emerged from it. However, this knight looked very familiar to most of the group. Once the summoning was complete, Lenneth teleported away.
“Vox?!” Nel shouted.
“Yes, I have risen from the grave to exact my revenge on all of you and claim my–” Vox said as he was interrupted when Thanatas summoned a skeletal dragon into the room to ravage the dragon Vox was riding, forcing him to fall to the floor.
“Huh, seems bone dragons really love murdering your mounts,” Thanatas said.
Enraged, Vox transformed his lance into a broadsword. “I will not suffer such humiliation again!”
Before everyone prepared for a fight, Albel stepped forward. “This maggot is mine!”
“Looking for your own revenge?” Sophia asked.
“I’ve been looking for a reason to kill him. Not only for dishonoring my father, but for pressing false charges on me and denying me the chance to take part in the war. I had plenty of reasons to kill this worm, but when I learned that he was killed, I was disappointed that I wasn’t the one to do it. I should thank that little girl, because she gave me the chance to personally bury him.”
Albel smiled wickedly in anticipation. Both took up their stances and charged at each other. Swords clashed repeatedly, both masters of the sword showing why they were masters of their own respective styles. Vox used his blade to block attacks from Albel’s katana and claws while Albel dodged the heavy attacks from Vox’s blade. Vox found gaps in Albel’s attacks and used that chance to use Ice Needles symbols to try to freeze his foe, but Albel blocked each needle with his katana then responded with an Air Slash, forcing Vox to dodge the shockwave.
Both warriors kept the pressure on each other and neither gave any ground until Albel summoned an Aura Wall between them and forced Vox to jump back to avoid getting caught in the maelstrom of screams. The former Black Brigade captain didn’t let up as he unleashed multiple shockwaves with his Air Slash of Fury technique. Vox couldn’t dodge the shockwaves as he was still backing away from the Aura Wall. The shockwaves left him unbalanced.
Albel capitalized on that and charged through the Aura Wall, taking a little mental damage as he went through, and proceeded to rush Vox with a furious series of slashes with his Double Slash of Fury technique. Vox managed to block some of the slashes with his sword but others managed to cut into his armor. Albel didn’t let up as he followed into his Hand of Doom technique where he furiously slashed at Vox with his claws.
The relentless assault soon proved too much for Vox’s sword and it shattered in two. With his victory at hand, Albel grabbed Vox’s head and used his Vampiric Flash to rip the life out of the resurrected Dragon Brigade captain.
Before Vox vanished, Albel had one last thing to say, “I’ll see you again someday. And when I do, your hell will truly begin.”
The rest of the group approached Albel with Sophia slowly clapping for him. “Congratulations on your win, edgelord. Now let’s move on.” Albel grumbled as he sheathed his katana and left the room with the others.
The next room had no other doors and the only thing in the room was one of the switches like the one they found on the third floor. Lemon activated the switch and walked back to the group.
With nothing else, the group checked out other rooms that they hadn’t explored yet. This eventually led to another room puzzle. Cliff moaned as he realized this.
“This puzzle works just like the last one,” Twilight explained. “The objective is the same too, we just have to deal with more rooms with less than four doorways.”
Unlike the last puzzle, the restrictions of doorways had made solving the puzzle take longer. Twilight already knew which rooms to move, but the process took longer. Eventually, she was able to move the hole until it was in the upper left corner of the four by four set of rooms and they all jumped down. Lemon Puff drank a potion that temporarily made her light as a feather so she wouldn’t injure herself from the fall.
The monsters on the seventh floor were much different from the previous two floors. Most of the monsters on this floor had better mental defenses so the group had to revert to the usual ways to eliminate them.
The weaker monsters encountered were toad warriors and demon hounds. The giant wasps were much tougher than they looked.
The most dangerous beasts they encountered on the floor were red versions of the hydras they fought on the fourth floor and renders with brown fur. The group had to be extra careful not to get incinerated by the flames from the hydras or frozen by the renders’ attacks.
Their exploration soon brought them into another large room. This one was infested by a large number of small, black, shapeless creatures each with yellow eyes and three flowers growing on their heads.
“Don’t let their looks fool you,” Lemon warned. “They’re a lot tougher than they look.” That was when the creatures jumped at each of the fighters. Fayt, Cliff, Nel, Roger, Albel, Adray, Mirage, Maria, and Peppita were knocked back into a wall. Sophia and Lyra stabbed theirs with their energy blades. Thanatas punched hers away and Twilight blasted one jumping at her. Lemon opened a vial that emitted a pungent smell that made the little creatures back off. “Told you,” she added.
Albel unleashed multiple shockwaves at the creatures which knocked them back while the others unleashed their own attacks such as Fayt’s Ethereal Blast and Maria’s Energy Burst, but they were still numerous and they still kept coming.
“Don’t let them near you,” Twilight warned. “These are sooties and they will blow themselves up by igniting the flowers on their heads.”
Several sooties lit their flowers and quickly bounced toward the group. Thanatas unleashed a wave of frost that put out the lit fuses. Sophia raced among the sooties and jabbed them at their subatomic weak points. When she returned to the group, the sooties froze up and fell apart before vanishing.
“That was certainly worthy of a guardian that I would expect would be protecting the prototype,” Sophia said.
Twilight nodded. “Sooties are one of the most dangerous species of monsters in the Eternal Sphere. Partly because they are underestimated. They may look small and adorable, but their stats are much higher than their forms show. They also multiply like rabbits…no offense Sophia. Because of this, the administrators in charge of monster biology have to keep them closely monitored because they could easily overrun towns and cities with their numbers. I daresay, worlds could fall if we slacked in regulating them.”
“If they’re so dangerous, why keep them around?” Cliff asked.
“Because they were the reason the Eternal Sphere Natural Preservation Committee was founded and I really don’t want them getting on my ass about trying to wipe them out. Trust me, they know how to weigh you down with guilt.” Twilight shuddered at the last time she tried to remove a species from the Eternal Sphere. That army of wide-eyed chipmunks should have been considered a war crime.
The room beyond contained an elevator that would take them to the last floor of the maze. Tensions were high as the realization that they were about to take on an artificial god had fully sunk in. A few at a time, the group descended to the final floor.
The exploration resumed once everyone reached the eighth floor. Past a straightforward hallway, they came into a large room that held several branching paths that, upon a brief exploration, led to small rooms with monsters in them. Two of the nearby rooms to their left and right were empty. Just ahead of them was a door that appeared to be held shut by four chains. A six-pointed star was in the center of the door.
“So the prototype is just beyond that chained door?” Cliff asked.
Twilight nodded. “The final guardians are maintaining the chains that keep the door shut. Let’s hurry and defeat them, whoever Crystal assigned to claim the prototype will also be beyond that door.
The group quickly hurried through the branched paths to the left and right of the final door.
The room on the far left was occupied by a five-headed chimera like the ones that were at the top of Spiral Tower. This took Twilight by surprise. “What’s this doing here?! This room was supposed to be occupied by a four-armed demon!”
“Sounds like Crystal is trying to troll us with more of these abominations,” Sophia said.
Not wanting to mess with the beast any longer than necessary, Maria unleashed an Energy Burst into the room while Fayt manifested his wings and fired his Ethereal Blast. Together they obliterated the chimera.
In the second room, they encountered a trio of undead ram knights. Since they were tied to the seal on the door, Thanatas couldn’t take control of them as that would serve no purpose.
Instead, Nel rushed in and charged at the ram knights. An aura of purple energy flowed from her and wrapped around her daggers. Her speed allowed her to get behind the undead knights and around their defenses where she began to slash away at them. The sharpened purple aura greatly increased the number of slashes she inflicted per swipe in the form of waves of razor-sharp wind. Nel spun around several times which unleashed countless blades of wind before she sent that aura forward as a hurricane of purple wind blades which tore the knights apart.
“What kinda ninja technique was that?” Cliff asked.
“What’s a ninja?” Nel asked back.
“Nevermind.”
Nel shrugged, “That leaves two more rooms to take care of. Let’s hurry.”
The third room contained a chimera that tried to pounce on the group with its mouths wide open. Lemon tossed one of her chemical bombs into the beast’s mouth. The feline head choked on the vial which shook up the contents and made the mixture volatile and explode. The beast vanished before the room could be sprayed by gore, much to Thanatas’ disappointment.
The final room was occupied by a trio of savants who had weak minds so Maria simply blew them all away with an Energy Burst.
The party returned to the final door and watched as the chains holding it closed were broken and the door opened, opening the way into a radiant sanctuary that held a number of pendulums in perpetual motion. The floor glowed with a brilliant radiance as a magic circle rotated beneath the glass platform.
Everyone entered the room and saw, in the center of the room, Swift Burial standing next to a humanoid being with dark skin and long blonde hair. The being was male and wore a dark gray and white robe. He also had a thick ring over his head and a pair of devices on his shoulders that emitted jets of white energy to his left and right to simulate wings. In his hand was a spear that looked electrically charged.
Swift looked at the group and smirked. “Finally made it, huh? Well, I knew you guys would. Understand that this isn’t personal, princess. Me and Belzebub couldn’t care less about the ELF or their schemes. But we’re being paid a lot of credits to eliminate you and I am a mercenary to the bitter end. I’ll admit that we are terrible people for doing this, but this is the life I chose. If it leads me to Tartarus, then so be it. I won’t back down, and I expect no less from all of you in kind. Try and stop me.” Swift then faded into the prototype, Gabriel Celesta.
Gabriel went through some changes once Swift merged with him. His tan skin turned dark brown and his blonde hair turned black. His face elongated and became a muzzle until it resembled Swift’s face. Gabriel’s feet shrank back and widened out until they became a pair of hooves.
Swift Burial, now fused with the prototype god, gave his electrified spear a few test swings and took his battle stance toward the group once satisfied with the feel of his new weapon. As he began to tap into the prototype’s power, the very air around them became charged with electricity.
In anticipation for the battle to come, Lemon Puff ran back to the other room and deployed a series of grounding rods at the doorway to prevent any stray lightning bolts from escaping the room and possibly hitting her. Everyone else took whatever precautions they could to protect themselves from the lightning.
Swift’s opening move was the creation of a number of magic circles above him. From the circles erupted salvos of missiles. Sophia and Lyra were quickly able to tell that the missiles were overcharged with electricity. Roger fired his own salvo of missiles from his shield but there were too many being fired from Swift to properly counter them. Each missile that exploded unleashed a powerful wave of electricity. Albel, Maria, Nel and Peppita were hit by the waves and screamed in pain as the electricity flowed through their bodies and caused their muscles to lock up in paralysis.
Sophia wasn’t about to let Swift get away with such an action and grabbed one of the missiles with her hands and hurled it back at him. Swift grunted as the missile hit him but it was apparent that the electricity didn’t work on him as the energy flowed harmlessly off of him.
Swift swung at Thanatas who parried the spear with her sword. While she was hit by the electricity, Thanatas’ undead body, tempered by years of exposure to stray electrical discharges during the course of her experiments with creating flesh golems, was resistant to the discharges from Swift’s spear.
Lyra tried to attack from behind but Swift quickly pulled away and swung his spear in an arc behind him and knocked the templar mare away. That attack earned him a blast of frost from Thanatas. Swift snarled in pain as the ice bit into him. Using an electrical discharge, he quickly evaporated the ice.
While Thanatas moved to Swift’s left, Sophia to his right and Lyra behind him waiting for an opportunity, everyone else attempted to attack him from the front. Swift countered this by creating an overcharged cloud and unleashed its intense lightning payload on the ground around them. All of the digital beings fell to the floor paralyzed while Twilight only had time to protect herself with one of her strongest shields.
Swift attempted to finish off the paralyzed victims by channeling intense electricity into his spear that the energy turned violet but the windup for his attack took too long and left him off guard when Sophia delivered a swift kick to his stomach and sent him flying into a back wall.
Swift quickly freed himself from the dent in the wall and unleashed another bombardment of overcharged missiles while he raised his spear into the air and began chanting something.
Sophia created a sphere of concentrated psionic energy in the form of a tiny sun and tossed it into the center of the room where Twilight used her magic to force the sphere to collapse, creating a singularity that pulled in all of the missiles and contained the electrical explosion of each warhead in a powerful gravity well.
As for Swift channeling his spell, Lyra took the opportunity to kick Swift in the back and send him flying into the singularity. The powerful gravitational forces threatened to crush the fused mercenary until he discharged a large amount of electricity from his body to disperse the gravity well.
While Swift was making his escape from the singularity, Thanatas plunged her sword into the floor and jumped away. The discharge ended up being absorbed by the sword and grounded by the floor. Once the energies subsided, Thanatas saw that Swift was recovering from his ordeal. She quickly grabbed her sword and struck at him, only to be parried by Swift’s spear. The undead could see the desperation in his eyes and smirked at him.
Swift, in his exhaustion, realized too late what that smirk meant as a pair of blue energy blades from Sophia decapitated him in a scissor-like fashion.
The body of the fallen prototype fell to the floor and continued to crackle with electricity. By the time this happened, Twilight had managed to heal everyone of their paralysis before she yelled out, “Everyone, we need to get out of here! Gabriel’s body has become unstable and is about to explode!”
Hearing that, everyone who could run fast ran out the door quickly while the slower ones like Roger were carried out. Once outside, they pushed the door closed and pressed against it as they waited for the blast.
Twenty seconds passed after Gabriel’s body collapsed before the prototype exploded violently in a way that rivaled the explosion from Lemon Puff’s chemical bomb from earlier. The group held the door closed with all their might as they tried to contain the explosion. Electricity escaped the door but the energy was contained by Lemon Puff’s grounding rods.
The destructive blast lasted for thirty seconds before it subsided. Everyone sat on the floor in relief that they managed to survive the fight against a prototype god.
Twilight placed a call to Azure Lazer to inform her to be on the lookout for Swift Burial who was likely wandering the Sphere Institute since his avatar was destroyed and he was sent back to the real world.
In congratulating the group for their efforts, Lemon Puff handed each of them an energy drink that Twilight quickly confiscated because they were illegal. The drinks were illegal because just one drink would quickly kill both of a person’s kidneys. Thanatas snatched hers back and drank it since she was dead anyway.
Though she did keep some of the liquid as a sample for any potential future plagues she wanted to develop.
Sophia drank hers as well and felt her body quickly develop an immunity to the toxic beverage.
Lemon grumbled and pulled out a case of bottled water for everyone to rehydrate themselves.
They were going to need that hydration for where they were headed next.