Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls

by thatguyvex


Episode 164: Confronting Charybdis

Episode 164: Confronting Charybdis

Within the confines of the Treasury’s humming engine room it was difficult for Wavecrest to have any notion of what was taking place outside. She knew when the vessel fired its weapons from the extra vibration through the water, or the shorter fluctuations in the ship’s power grid that indicated the magical shields taking a hit, but beyond that the seapony was left to wait and pray for the success of Twilight Sparkle and her friends. 

More than anything she wanted to be with them, to confront the black hearted creature that was responsible for so much of her kin’s suffering. How many seaponies had been deprived of loved ones because of Charybdis’ role in making the sahuagin what they were today? 

She bears responsibility, but can you deny that your ancestors did nothing to contribute to the present state of things? a cynical corner of her heart asked. She wanted to deny that voice with all of her might, but to be a shaman of the sea meant one had to learn to set aside some level of personal ego in order to commune with the ocean’s spirits. If she forced her anger, her rancor, and her pride in her people aside for just a moment... perhaps she could admit to herself that the cycle of violence was turned by seapony hooves as much as sahuagin hands. Yet that did not change that Charybdis had made things worse by installing herself as a ‘goddess’ and fueling the sahuagin beliefs. Charybdis could have been the first to offer a hoof in peace! With her power she could have begun the process of healing for both sides! Instead all she had done was pursue power for her own ends, and encouraged centuries of needless bloodshed in the process.

Wavecrest was not about to give the woman one inch of sympathy, and only regretted that she couldn’t be present to give Charybdis a piece of her mind and participate more directly in the witch’s defeat. Once all was said and done, perhaps she might be able to start what would be a long, slow, and painful process of reconciliation between sahuagin and seaponies, but she would still need the boon of the Treasury’s technology to help advance her people, and possibly return home with Domare’s Eye of the Sea...

Her presence in the engine room required a great deal of her attention. Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer had almost made the task of monitoring the Treasury's magical power core look simple, but in truth it took a good deal of perception and focus. As advanced as the Treasury was, many parts of it were experimental, and nowhere was that more apparent than the crystalline core and all the subsystems that distributed power throughout the vessel. While powerful, and fairly durable, the power system was prone to fluctuations, especially in combat where the ship was using both its many potent weapons and its equally impressive shields. While Wavecrest technically didn’t have to do much to actually control those minor fluctuations, she still had to keep a keen eye out for them.

Perhaps then it could be understood that when the doors to the engine room opened, Wavecrest didn’t immediately respond, as she’d been so glued to the main monitoring station that it took a few extra seconds for her to realize someone had entered the room. Secondly, for the convenience of the ship’s mostly surface dwelling crew, the decision had been made to keep the ship air pressurized, rather than flood it with water. The Treasury was adequately designed to handle either having air or water filling its internals, and could handle the depths easily enough regardless, so no problem had been seen in letting the ponies have the familiarity of air until the time came for them to leave the ship.

So Wavecrest was also maintaining her pony form, and was a bit slower to turn around as a result. This meant that by the time she noticed who was in the room, she already felt the tearing pain explode in her side. Shock washed over her in a frozen wave, and she saw the contorted features of Ulgriv fill her vision as the sahuagin, surrounded by a strange miasma of swirling dark energy, bashed her across the face with a hefty fist. His other hand withdrew the kitchen knife he’d used to stab her, and Wavecrest, dazed and hammered by shock, collapsed to the ground.

Ulgriv spoke, but his voice was distorted, and in her stunned state Wavecrest barely realized that the female overlay that spoke over Ulgriv’s own trembling tone was none other than Charybdis’.

“Thought you and Twilight Sparkle would keep one of my own safe behind your wards? I was mastering magic ages before your parents’ parents were spawned, girl.”

Wavecrest coughed and tried to reach for her staff, which she’d left propped up against the engine room’s monitoring station, but Ulgriv, possessed by Charybdis, kicked the staff away. Blood seeped out of Wavecrest, staining the bronze engine room floor. Ulgriv walked around her, his body moving in jerking motions, Charybdis’ voice still speaking derisively with the young sahaugin’s lips.

“Do you know my faithful Ulgriv even hesitated to go for your heart? Would a seapony ever hesitate to kill a sahuagin, I wonder? Consider it my gift to him for his service that I’ll leave you to bleed out instead of finishing you off. Whether you live or die is in your own hooves, although once I deal with Twilight and her allies any of you who survive can expect my shamans to come calling soon. I do hope you enjoy a slave’s chains.”

Trying to prop herself up, despite the pain of the gaping, bleeding wound in her side, Wavecrest hoped to lunge for her staff, but before she could a wave of dark magic coiled off of Ulgriv’s possessed body and lashed her into the wall hard enough to make it ring like a gong. “Of course if you push it, my mercy won’t extend much further. I admire your tenacity, Wavecrest, but my sister had tenacity too, and it didn’t do too well for her in the end. Now, what to do about this stupid toy boat of hers? Sadly between the whale’s share of my power needed elsewhere and Ulgriv being too fragile a host to channel too much of my might through I can’t simply demolish this room, but I ought to be able to break something important.”

With a grasping gesture, Ulgriv’s hand rose and clenched his talon upon his palm, drawing blood. With the blood sizzling as a magical catalyst, a thick lance of spectral darkness shaped into a tentacle flew out and lashed through several bronze pipes connecting the floor to the engine room’s central crystal. Sparks of magic flared up and a barrier flashed into place, formed of concentric hexagons that encased the crystal as the room was flooded with red light and a warning klaxon blared. Ulgriv frowned, Charybdis’ voice scoffing, “Ah, Scylla actually thought of automating a protective barrier. Points to my paranoid sister. Well, let’s just smash this then.”

With those words she directed her arcane tendril of caustic darkness at the monitoring console, the magic searing through metal like highly concentrated acid. An explosion of metal shards and sparks flew from the console as it fell into two pieces. Ulgriv’s body was protected by a barrier of magic that popped up in front of him, but Wavecrest was cut by several flying bits of shrapnel, adding to the blood loss she was already suffering from.

“That ought to slow this ship down,” Charybdis said with Ulgriv’s throat, turning to start striding out of the room, only pausing once to glance at Wavecrest as the badly wounded seapony tried to crawl towards her staff, which remained painfully out of reach. “I’d spend less energy trying to get that useless stick in a vain effort to stop me and instead focus on closing your wounds. Be a shame to give Ulgriv the gift of your life only for you to throw it away, but then again I don’t much care if you live or die. Farewell.”

With that, the possess sahuagin was gone, and Wavecrest was left with the alarm’s shrill noise filling her ears along with the painful thunder of her own slowing heartbeat. Blood pooled under her, and her staff was still a tantalizing several meters away. She didn’t need it to cast spells, but the staff provided a needed focal point to augment them. She might save her own life without it, but she’d be unable to do anything else, least of all warn those on the bridge that Charybdis was coming!

Doggedly, she pulled herself forward one blood streaked, agonizing inch at a time towards her staff...

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“What in blue skied blazes is that alarm going off for?” Seaspray said, looking to Grubber, who was sitting in front of him on the sensor’s station of the bridge, “Were we hit?”

The hedgehog-like creature tossed his shoulders up in a shrug as he cast back a confused look at the Admiral. “I can barely tell what’s going on outside the ship, let alone anything going on inside it. I didn’t exactly get a lot of training on this gear before you guys strapped me to this seat. I’ve got all sorts of flashy red bits on the ship readout, and looks like parts of the shields are cutting in and out at random. I think something happened in the engine room?”

Seaspray frowned, and Aria spoke up from the port side weapons controls, “I just lost power to, like, half the cannons. I’d say we’ve got a problem.”

“Same over here!” shouted Sonata, banging random buttons on her controls, “It’s like somebody just glitched the controls.”

So far the Treasury had held back from engaging the sahuagin fortress further with Rainbow Dash dueling with their three champions, but Seaspray wanted the ship’s systems fully ready to go the moment the time came to engage again. Without the weapons and shields the ship was just one big target, and there were still more than enough sahuagin out there to swarm them if the Treasury couldn’t defend itself. He got onto the communications system with a flick of his talon and spoke into it, “Engine room, this is the bridge. Wavecrest, has anything happened? We’re having power issues up here. Engine room...? Wavecrest, respond! Wavecrest, can you hear me?”

“Gonna take a guess and say this doesn’t bode well,” said Grubber, “Want me to run on back there and take a peek on our resident fish horse?”

“Resident fish gal? What are we, then?” Sonata asked, sounding almost insulted, and Grubber cracked a grin.

“You guys are more like angry shark horses. Totally different thing.”

“Regardless we need somecreature to go find out what happened to Wavecrest,” Seaspray said, “I’d send Trixie, but she’s busy keeping those illusions going. And I need you here, Grubber, to maintain our eyes, even if our skill level is dubious.”

“Gee, thanks chief.” 

“Me and Sonata will go look. We’re not shooting right now anyway,” said Aria, floating up from her chair, “Any objections?”

“None, but be quick. If the sahuagin do attack, we’ll need every gun, but that also means fixing whatever’s wrong in engineering. Hopefully it’s just a communications glitch...” Seaspray said, but he had an increasingly sinking feeling in his gut that something worse was happening here. His suspicions focused on one particular element that had continued to bother him this entire time. While Twilight Sparkle and Wavecrest had worked together to secure the prisoner Ulgriv, they had not had a spare individual to guard him. 

“And on your way to engineering, check on the prisoner. Just in case,” he said, just as Aria and Sonata both were reaching the bridge’s exit. In that same instance, the doors opened. Catching all off guard, it was Ulgriv who stood there, and it was with the unnaturally distorted voice of Charybdis herself that the young sahuagin spoke as he flashed sharp teeth at the shocked faces of Aria and Sonata.

“Excellent. I was just coming to see you girls. You’ve a reunion with your sister’s errant soul shard, and I’ve a schedule to keep.”

Seaspray was out of his seat in seconds, talons flexing in lieu of a weapon to use as he flew forward at the new threat. The two sirens reared back in equal parts surprise and instinctual defense, fangs and hooves barred. But Charybdis had arrived prepared, and retained the element of surprise, having already begun shaping magic for a spell before the doors to the bridge had even opened. It pushed Ulgriv’s body to the maximum amount possible, but Charybdis was willing to risk it in this instance. The distance wasn’t great and she was intimately familiar with the destination, which made the workings of teleportation magic far simpler than they otherwise would be.

Before Seaspray had gotten across even half the distance to the door, a spiral of shadow erupted from around Ulgriv and swallowed both him and the two sirens. By the time Seaspray got to the door, the brief burst of swirling shadows had vanished in an imploding pop. Aria and Sonata were gone, along with Ulgriv.

Seaspray halted at the empty doorway and sagged to the floor, his wings drooping. “No... dammit, no!”

“Uh, soooo, that’s not good, is it?” said Grubber, and Seaspray slammed a fist to the deck, then got back on his hooves and shot a glaring look over his shoulder at the hedgehog. 

“Get your friend Tempest and Starlight Glimmer in here! Tell them what happened, and see if one of them knows a spell to contact Twilight to warn her of what just occurred! I’m going to the engine room at once. If Wavecrest is hurt, I’ll need at least one of you to help me in the infirmary.”

“G-got it, chief!” Grubber said, hands shaking a bit as he fumbled for the communications device on his own console to connect to the upper deck’s com, where Trixie, Starlight, and Tempest still were.

Meanwhile, cursing himself for not anticipating all of this and knowing full well he couldn’t have known, Seaspray rushed out of the bridge as fast as his wings could carry him. He prayed that he’d find Wavecrest alive, since he was fairly certain she was anything but safe.

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Morgawr knew a losing battle when he saw one, but as ever faith in the Deep Mistress propelled him to keep moving, to burn away the shame of his previous defeat. His body screamed protest. The blow that the surfacer named Rainbow Dash had dealt him had broken his left arm, and his body was already in torment from having barely recovered from the damage dealt to it at the climax of his battle with Twilight Sparkle. He was aware he was outmatched here. They all were. 

Rezarra, for all of her skill and the impressive abilities of her weapon, could simply not keep up with Rainbow Dash’s incredible speed. And wherever Berokar had slipped off to, Morgawr doubted the stealthy warrior’s ability to ambush the seemingly supernaturally alert pegasus. No, it was clear as long as they kept fighting as individuals, there was no means of victory against this foe.

“Rezarra, to me!” he called, swimming up as fast as he could while angling to get closer to the canyon’s wall. Normally with Rezarra as the chosen warleader it was presumptuous of him to command her, but he was still the eldest of the champions. He trusted she’d understand that this was no time to bother with ranks.

Rezarra had been forced to go on the defensive, forming a protective barrier of shark teeth around herself. The teeth were angled outward, creating interconnected rings of sawing blades, effectively enclosing her in a bubble of cutting death. This served to deflect a few of Rainbow Dash’s streaking sword strikes, the pegasus cutting so fast through the water that she was leaving invisible shockwaves of air with each motion. Rezarra’s barrier of blades was near broken with each strike, only maintained at all because she could quickly summon more magical shark teeth at a moment’s notice. She tried to chase Dash, using her barrier like a battering ram, but in response Rainbow Dash halted in the water and thrust her swordbreaker forward almost like a spear. From the tip of the blade exploded a raw blast of wind that churned the waters and smashed into Rezarra and her blade barrier, shoving both backward in an uncontrolled tumble.

Morgawr heard the huntress curse loudly as she dispelled her barrier and rejoined the shark teeth to Leviathan Slayer’s main circle blade and she swam in a burst of speed to join him. Rezarra’s eyes were wide with disbelief, her voice hoarse with wounded pride, “I did not believe you, Morgawr! The power of these surfacers! It’s unbelievable. Just one of them, and I cannot cut her, no matter what I try!”

“Faith, Rezarra. She is not invincible. We must work together and use our environment. This is our home. Our ground.” 

As he spoke they reached the jagged canyon wall, and he tapped the solid stone with his spear, “Draw her close. I know not where Berokar is, but he is no doubt laying in wait. Whatever it takes, we immobilize her, even if for a mere moment. Use the wall, just as we once hunted sharks as spawnlings.”

He saw understanding bloom in Rezarra’s eyes and she nodded, showing a fierce flash of teeth. With a shrill bellow she hurled Leviathan Slayer in its entirety out into the dark waters, crimson energy bleeding from the circle blade as it spun at dizzying speed. Rezarra’s outstretched claw directed the weapon as she swam up the wall, while Morgawr swam off at a slightly different angle, his own body filling up with a sanguine glow as the tattoos on his flesh burned bright. 

Rezarra’s blade made multiple slicing passes at Rainbow Dash, who had watched the pair of champions head towards the canyon wall with cautious curiosity. She was wary of another hidden strike from Berokar, and also wasn’t so full of herself to blindly chase the other two. Rainbow could tell the pair were up to something. With quick bursts of wind speed she zipped in and out of view, evading Rezarra’s attacks several times. Then the circle blade abruptly halted behind her, placing Dash between it and the canyon’s wall. The shark teeth erupted outward, accompanied by a swath of magical duplicates, in what could only be described as a rapid fire shotgun attack. 

Eyes closed, Rezarra had resorted to pure mental focus to direct the shark tooth blades at random, her intent to fill the water with such a dense and randomized pack of projectiles that predicting their path would be near impossible. Nearly, for many save one like Rainbow Dash. Although she could indeed deflect or dodge many of the shark teeth, the simple density of the number being fired made her instinctively evade backwards towards the wall.

So that was Rezarra’s game? Dash didn’t know just what they intended by trying to get her close to the wall. Perhaps they thought they’d limit her movement? It was true she wouldn’t have as much room to dodge if she was up near the wall, but in terms of speed she was still fast enough to deflect or dodge aside any attack these champions seemed capable of dishing out. Rainbow figured she’d give them what they wanted, just not in the way they wanted.

She turned and swam towards the wall, but at the same time she drew forth more of her magical might, flexing the power of the wind within herself. A spherical cyclone of aerial force formed around Rainbow and grew in size exponentially by the second. In mere moments she’d created a gust filled windstorm that pushed back the water for over a hundred meter radius around her, which included a good chunk of the wall itself.

Rezarra suddenly found herself with no water to hold her up, having to dig her claws into the stone to keep from falling. Morgawr had found himself in a similar state, and with just one good arm he was worse off, having to jam his spear into a crevice of the wall to stay in position.

Hovering in the massive area of harsh wind she created around herself, Rainbow Dash bounced her sword off of her shoulder and put a hoof on her hip. “Look guys, I appreciate that you’re trying to box me in here. Probably got a whole plan going on in your heads or whatever. But you do get that I’m holding back, right? We promised one of your own not to hurt anyone too bad, like, not kill and stuff. Which I’m down with. Not a big fan of corpsifying creatures. But seriously if you guys keep this up I’m going to have to get rough, you know? This dude in my head, Tachys, is not as warm and fuzzy as I am. His instincts are shouting at me to hit you full force, and I’m real close to listening.”

“You love your own voice too much, surfacer,”  Rezarra spat and her circle blade came flying out of the area of water the sphere of wind was holding back. It spun at Rainbow Dash’s back, but the pegasus flipped over it, her feathers brushing against the spinning shark teeth as Leviathan Slayer flew by her.

The circle blade kept moving, straight towards Rezarra, who pushed herself off of the canyon wall and landed on the central handles of her own sword. Now riding it like a flying disc, moving under its own magical power, Rezarra rose into the air to confront Dash with a toothy grin. Rainbow, for her part, actually smiled back. “Okay, I’ll admit it, that’s kinda cool.”

“So glad you approve,” Rezarra replied, and held out her talons. Two shark teeth flew up into her hands, and morphed into slight longer blades with small handles, like a pair of small sabers. Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question it as the sahaugin champion flew forward riding her own circle blade, and started slicing at her with the dual swords she now carried.

Dash braced herself and worked her own swordbreaker in quick parries, not having too much trouble keeping pace. She suspected she was missing something about Rezarra’s tactics, as this seemed less effective than trying to hit Dash with those hundreds of shark teeth earlier. Why switch it up to such a slower, less efficient means of attack? However, she soon noticed Rezarra picking up the pace. Her blade spun faster, and Rezarra spun with it, yet worked her held swords ever faster as well. Rainbow Dash could still keep up, but now her attention was focused upon Rezarra herself. 

The pair swerved through the air like two clashing tops, sparks flying between them with each clash of blades. Dash was having fun, but wanted to make it clear she wasn’t to be toyed with. Tachys’ memories as a warrior were less calm counsel and more shouting flashes of instinct, and he wanted his enemies dead before him, not played with or merely subdued. In a moment of losing a bit of her grip on those memories, she drew in sharp lances of air around her wings and after one instance of parrying Rezarra’s swords she let that wind explode out of her wings, one after another, first from above then below.

Rezarra was blasted by those lances of air, one tearing the shark tooth sword in her right talon free, and the other striking her hip and nearly blasting her off of Leviathan Slayer. The sahuagin caught herself on the weapon to keep from falling, and despite blood not dripping from her jaws, she leveled herself back atop it as Dash poised to come in with another blast of air.

Yet it was at that instant Rainbow Dash noticed something. The seemingly random motions of her brief clash with Rezarra had brought them closer to the canyon wall, perhaps only about fifteen meters from it. Close enough for what Rezarra and Morgawr had in mind. 

Sahaugin were hunters, and among the many beasts of the sea that inhabited the Abyss, sharks and squid remained the most common. A favorite tactic of many a young sahuagin hunting party was to drive their prey close to the sea floor or the wall of the Abyss labyrinthine trenches, where it was possible to ensnare them in well made nets that immobilized the predators enough for the hunters to make the kill.

Rezarra had no net, per se, but her beloved Leviathan Slayer was a deceptively versatile weapon with the blessing of Charybdis’ magic fueling it. Her headlong attacks upon Rainbow Dash were more than a means to draw the pegasus close to the wall, they were also a distraction from Rezarra fueling the creation of a “net”. Or rather, a series of interlocking magical shark teeth duplicates that dangled from the downward side of her circular blade as she rode it, forming dozens of long and sharp tendrils like that of a jellyfish. With Dash in just the right spot, Rezarra flipped her blade over so the dozens of shark tooth whips faced her and shot outward. At the same time even more arcane duplications of the shark teeth formed, creating connecting strands between each tendril so that it truly did become like one large, conical net that formed around Rainbow Dash. The ends of this makeshift net anchored to the wall and started to contract, pulling the “net” closed around Rainbow.

For her part, Rainbow Dash hovered back towards the wall, but didn’t yet gain a look of concern, but rather a hint of respect. However, she closed her wings tight around herself, then burst them outward in a show of tornado wind force. This slammed into the closing net, and Rezarra herself. The sahuagin felt the wind sharpening around her like blades, tearing at her flesh, but she doggedly held onto Leviathan Slayer and poured more of her Deep Mistress’ power through her body to fuel the blade and its conjured net.

Still, Rainbow Dash held the net at bay so that the sharp edges of its shark teeth couldn’t reach her. She was still hovering close to the wall, but she figured with a bit more effort she could break free easily enough.

It was then that Morgawr acted. He’d been building up what power he could, pooling the blessing of Charybdis’ magic into his legs and one unbroken arm. Foot claws digging into the stone, he coiled them, letting the muscles bulge and contract. The pain was unbearable, his body tormented by too much use and too little time to heal, but he cared not. Sacrificing his body was but one form of worship and he prayed fervently and thankfully to the Deep Mistress as he felt the power surge within.

With a leap of both legs he launched himself like a missile, snatching his spear out of the wall and driving it ahead of him as he plunged at Rainbow Dash just as he might have once done to hunt sharks similarly netted near the wall. Rezarra even removed a few strands of the net to let Morgawr pass, watching as her fellow champion flew right at Rainbow Dash.

In an instant of azure blue motion, Rainbow turned to face Morgawr head on, and in an unusual stance she slipped her swordbreaker, almost seemingly in slow motion, into a “sheathed” state at her hip. Tachys, his memories filling her mind, whispered through Rainbow Dash’s lips as the rawest edge of the sky’s turbulent winds coalesced around the sword’s edge.

“Octo Ventus, Ferrum Unum.” (Eight Winds, One Blade)

Neither Rezarra or Morgawr saw precisely what occurred. A shriek of wind, a severing streak of eight silver flashs. The spear Morgawr carried disintegrated into pieces, and a perfect octagon of eight equal cuts exploded across his chest as Rainbow Dash simply appeared on the opposite side of him, her sword held out with only a single drop of blood cleanly dripping off of it’s tip without staining the blade itself. Silently, Morgawr fell without a word or sputter, a second before a shockwave of wind from Rainbow Dash’s strike exploded outward in a storm that tore apart Rezarra’s net of shark teeth and sent her flying backward upon her floating weapon.

Rainbow Dash was breathing hard, not so much in excretion, but in a battle for mental control. Tachys’ memories had risen far harsher than ever before and it’d taken every ounce of willpower Dash had to keep his attack from tearing Morgawr to pieces. As it stood she wasn’t sure if those wounds were fatal or not, but if she’d failed to hold Tachy’s back, the sahuagin champion would’ve been turned into literal chunks by that attack. 

Dang it you ancient warrior jerk, I get that you come from a way different time than mine and are way more used to this all out bloodshed stuff, but you need to step off and work with me here. 

Dash’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of groaning rock. In sudden succession the already unstable rock face of the trench cliff suddenly cracked in several long, neat lines. Only without water to keep them buoyed, the rock fell fast and in huge, rough slabs that no doubt weighed hundreds of tons. 

Rainbow grunted in anger as she noticed the flickering shadow move above where the rock was falling. Berokar. The little sneak must have started using his unnaturally sharp knives to start cutting the weakest portions of the wall to make the whole thing come down again, like he had against the Treasury. Only Rezarra and Morgawr were both in the danger area now as well! Did this guy not care about getting his own comrades killed!?

With far less time to react, Dash still moved with all the speed of the wind itself and the first thing she did was rush down to snatch up Morgawr’s falling form with a gust of wind. Controlling the wind with precision she turned it into something akin to a clasping hand and gripped Morgawr. She then flew right at the shocked Rezarra, who clearly hadn’t been expecting Berokar to drop half the canyon wall on her. At most Rezarra figured Berokar might make another sneak attack with Dash distracted, but nothing like this! 

Fortunately for Rezarra, Rainbow Dash’s speed let her streak right by the huntress and snatch her by the back fins, dragging Rezarra along just in time to avoid being smashed by the countless tons of falling rock.

However, just as Rainbow Dash re-entered the water outside of the bubble of wind force she’d been maintaining, she caught another tiny ripple of motion. Burdened by carrying the other two sahuagin champions, and not having expected another attack to come that fast, she was a tad slower in responding this time. Berokar hadn’t just dropped all of that rock avalanche towards her, he’d ridden the last slab of rock down and hidden himself atop it. Then, the moment that slab of rock passed by Dash as she had pulled Morgawr and Rezarra to safety, the near invisible sahuagin ambusher launched himself from the rock and right at Dash’s back.

Black needles shot out from his body in a converging storm, and his own poisoned knives came in at the pegasus’ neck from both sides. She nearly felt their searing edges touch her flesh, and did feel the sharp stab of several of those black spines from Berokar’s body impact with her silver armor. Luckily that armor was of such stern arcane construction that the spines failed to penetrate, and Berokar’s knives, just a shade slower, gave her that fraction of a second needed to tap into the wind’s power and transmute her body.

She turned into air itself, her whole body becoming translucent of a phantom of wind, and she turned that air pressure upon Berokar. Like Rezarra and Morgawr, she now held him suspended in mid-air, forming a new bubble of wind around herself and her three firmly grasped sahuagin.

“Cursed surfacer! I nearly had you there!” Berokar roared, but Dash, still a phantom of wind, shook her mane, which still faintly gleamed with rainbow colors even as a translucent entity of air.

“Yeah, sure dude. Look, I am beyond done with this. This was a good workout, but by now Twilight and the gals are probably getting into it with your boss, and I’m not about to be late for that party. Soooo, yeah, I’m ending this here.”

Hardening the wind force around Rezarra and Berokar, and not really bothering to do that with the down and out Morgawr, Rainbow Dash aimed herself straight down... and shot off at near Sonic Rainbow speed. Rezarra and Berokar both gasped and shouted wordlessly as they were carried down with enough G-force to make their heads spin. Rezarra tried to fire off some shark teeth from her blade, but at the speed Dash was going, even if one of those blades managed to cut the pegasus, it wouldn’t have stopped her.

In less than a second Rainbow Dash delivered her payload to the sea floor with just enough force to cause a small local crater to form. She let the water close in on her and she let go of Berokar and Rezarra, and carefully waited to see the results of the impact. She hoped she had a solid grasp of what these two could or couldn’t take, at least. With the water now surrounding the three champions of Charybdis, Dash could see them floating listlessly and unmoving. Carefully she checked each one, cautious of an attack. 

It looked as if Rezarra and Berokar were out cold. Juiced up or not, Rainbow Dash had gotten a good sense of how hard it was to smash them into the ground to take them out of the fight, after seeing what Morgawr could take. As for Morgawr himself, his gills still showed signs of breathing, but Dash was less confident he’d wake up. The cuts on his chest from the Eight Winds, One Blade weren’t shallow, even with Dash having held back as much as she could. Blood oozed into the water in dark streaks, and Rainbow didn’t know the first thing about medicine, and for all the magical power her Inheritor status gave her, none of it was for healing.

With a calming breath, she resolved herself to just deal with whatever happened and hope for the best. She could have ended the fight with these three sooner than this, but the whole point had been to maintain the distraction for long enough that Twilight and the girls could reach Charybdis. Rainbow Dash certainly hoped they had, because Dash was eager to get this whole mess over with. Adventure was one thing, but Rainbow was not a big fan of conflicts getting bloody. 

Looking over at the sahuagin fortress, she did see some activity there as a number of warriors started cautiously approaching. No doubt they were trying to get a good look at what had happened to their champions. Rainbow Dash didn’t know how sahuagin codes of honor worked, and wasn’t about to assume the fishmen would just live and let live now that she’d won her “duel”. Moving back towards the Treasury, she figured the next step would be to run the fortress’ blockade and get into Rift Mouth.

As she got closer to the ship, she noticed something odd. The vessel’s shields were flickering on and off in places, and even the ship lights seemed unsteady, cutting in and out. 

That couldn’t be a good sign. Dash doubled timed it, hoping that whatever was going wrong, it wasn’t going to slow her down from joining her friends for the final fight.

---------

It was with an increasing sense of urgency that Twilight allowed the two child sahuagin to lead her and her companions deeper into the vast trench realm of Rift Mouth. Swimming roughly west from the spot they’d picked up the squeamish Ritigiv and more bold Dravma, Twilight saw more pits dug into the ground and got a clearer view of what lay within. Dugout side caves led to bubbles of air pockets, and nestled within she could see clusters of shining white eggs, partially translucent with the unborn sahuagin within. It was difficult to count but each dugout probably had about a dozen eggs, and each pit about five or six such clusters. Each pit was tended by a mountain of a sahuagin female like Farmaiz, who was always seen wrangling around ten to twenty tiny sahuagin children who a times seemed all but feral. The younger ones were exceedingly... bitey, if the marks on many a sahuagin broodmother was any indication. The older children seemed more calm and disciplined, helping the broodmother keep the younger ones in check.

It was hard to tell how many of these pits were for spawning, but Twilight saw at least ten just as they swam over the “city”. 

“Do all of you children stay in those pits until you’re adults?” she asked of the two children swimming just ahead of her. Ritigiv shrank back from her words as if still expecting the surfacer to attack him, but Dravma looked back at her with pride in their eyes and voice. It was still hard for Twilight to tell if Dravma was male or female, without anything distinguishing enough about their body shape or voice to really make it clear.

“Hah, only the weak ones! Strong sahuagin like me and Rit here will escape to challenge ourselves to tests of bravery and daring! It's a mark of strength to be punished by the broodmother and survive another day.”

“Which is why we should go back, Dravma,” Ritigiv said, but the other young sahuagin waved him off.

“Pfft, this is way more fun. I want to see if these soft kin are really crazy enough to go into the Deep Mistress’ lair. I might sneak a peek myself.”

“Don’t but dumb, the Deep Mistress will curse you for straying where only shamans and chosen are allowed to venture,” Ritigiv said.

“How far is this lair?” asked Rarity, eyes ever alert. There were other sahuagin seen swimming about the various trench cliff caves, or dwelling pits along the seabed, but fortunately actual water traffic was light and gave the ponies plenty of space to swim and talk in hushed whispers without drawing attention. As long as Twilight’s spells held out, at any rate.

“That way, a good distance,” Dravma said, pointing ahead where the narrow trench walls were interspersed with those odd coral bridges. Twilight noted that there were other trench offshoots to the north and south, almost as if the center of Rift Mouth was an open circle that had curving branches curling off of it like the tendrils of an octopus. Dravma continued to speak in a prideful, even hopeful tone, “Those bridges lead to the shamans quarters. They get the best food and warmest caves, second only to spawning pools. At the end of that trench is the Path of Deep Worship, the shrine most holy to our Deep Mistress, and just beyond that, the Great Rift itself where She dwells at it’s darkest depth. We’re not going there.”

“Huh? Ain’t ya supposed ta be leadin’ us somewhere close ta where yer Deep Whatever is hiding at?” said Applejack, and Dravma snorted.

“I said I’d lead you to a hideout not far from there, which is true. It’s just not in that trench arm. The shamans would never let spawns like us play around in their territory. One must be selected by an elder shaman to have the honor of even entering that trench. No, our hideout is in the slave quarries. Best place to hide from the broodmothers. Lots of spawnlings use it. Now be quiet soft kin.”

Applejack grumbled something under her breath about snot-nosed brats, and Twilight suppressed an urge to correct her that sahuagin didn’t seem to have mucus producing nostrils anyway. The party slowly shifted course southward, leading towards a wider trench opening to one of the side canyons that curved away from the main area. Here, Twilight saw a cluster of sahuagin warriors standing watch upon two carved spires of rock that rose from the edges of the trench mouth like upward curving tusks. Her heart raced a little, but she knew that for the moment her group couldn’t be seen, not unless they strayed too close.

Beyond the guard spires, this side trench splintered into several uneven fingers, filled top to bottom with a honeycomb of unnatural tunnel entrances that were all clearly carved open by tools rather than by nature. Along the walls were tiers of space used for growing what appeared to be some kind of algae farm, and as Twilight noticed this she also took note of a continuous ring of noise that echoed in this trench, like the scrapping of many hooves on a chalkboard.

Before long she saw that the algae farms were being tended by a combination of both sahaguin and... seaponies! Scores of them worked in small groups, not chained or restrained, but carefully watched by sahuagin warriors armed with tridents and harpoons. Strangely some sahaugin still worked beside the seapony slaves, perhaps as punishment for some crime or another? 

From the tunnel mouths Twilight spotted the source of some of that scrapping sound, a block of stone being hauled out by a group of seaponies and sahuagin who all looked equally exhausted from the effort. They used thick nets to drag the stone, which was cut into a rough square. Once outside of the tunnel, the slaves then started shifting the stone onto a incline that let it slide towards a waiting pit where other slaves waited with picks and carving tools.

“Impressed?” Dravma asked, smiling with an odd amount of prideful innocence, “We have little in the Abyss, but strong stone from deep inside the walls makes for good tools, shrines, cauldrons, statues to the Deep Mistress, fortress walls, all sorts of things. A skilled stone carver can earn lots of honor, almost as much as a hunter or warrior.”

“I kind of want to be a caver if I live to be an adult,” said Ritigiv, to which Dravma laughed.

“Not me, I’ll be a warrior all the way, but if you become a carver Rit, you can carve my house shrine for me.”

Twilight was hesitant to ask, but she wanted to be sure of something, “Dravma, I’ve heard sahaugin... use their slaves sometimes for sacrifices. Is that true?”

“Oh yes,” Dravma replied as if it was the simplest fact in the world, “The shamans sometimes take the ones the cause trouble, or can’t work any more, and bring them into the shaman caves. I don’t know all the magic that goes on in there, but I know sacrifice fuels some of their rituals. I think it’s how they enchant some of the weapons given to champions, or their special cauldrons. Of course broodmother Farmaiz keeps telling us bad spawnlings also get taken for sacrifice, but I’ve never seen that happen so I think she’s lying just to try and make us behave.”

Twilight was silent for a moment, then glanced at Flash Sentry, who took the hint and swam closer to her. Once he was close enough she whispered to him, “How many slaves do you think are here?”

His eyes gave a pensive scan of the farms, quarries, and mine entrances. Flash’s lips were set in a deep frown, his ears laying flat against his head. “Hard to say, but at least several hundred. Probably more in the tunnels.”

“When we start fighting Charybdis, if... when we win, I don’t want the sahaugin to decide their slaves should be dead rather than free,” Twilight said, unhappy even thinking of the possibility that the sahaugin might decide to kill their captives once they learn their Deep Mistress was defeated, but she couldn’t take any chances. “Do you think you could deal with the number of warriors here?”

Her heart warmed slightly at his encouraging smile as he tapped his chest with a hoof. “I’m a Lieutenant of the Gotei 13, Twilight. A few dozen fishmen with pointy sticks aren’t going to be a problem for me. Question is, when and how you want me to make a move?”

They were nearing a mine tunnel entrance that was towards the middle of the trench’s northern wall, one that was unguarded and, near as Twilight could tell, long unused from the lack of any recent signs of activity. Dravma and Ritigiv led them right up to the entrance and paused to look back at the group of ponies. Twilight put a hoof to Flash’s shoulder, whispering, “I’ll tell you in a moment, let’s see where this hideout is, first.”

“What are you two soft kin whispering about?” Dravma said, “Thinking of going coward and fleeing before facing our Deep Mistress like you claim to be here for?”

“Not at all,” Twilight said, “Just sharing our amazement at sahuagin ingenuity. We had no idea how... interesting your city would be.”

“Hah, it’s a dull, cold hole at the bottom of the ocean, but it’s better than it would be if we hadn’t the Deep Mistress looking out for us,” Dravma said, leading them into the mine tunnel. 

As Twilight suspected, this tunnel hadn’t been used in some time, with the long, winding path into the rock of the trench wall bearing the old scars of stone being stripped from within, leading to a tunnel that was rather jagged and bizarrely geometric as they swam on. It didn’t take long at all to reach the end of the tunnel, which opened into a cubic room of spaced out, random right angles, as if the miners had taken random quasi-square chunks out of the space until no good stone was left. Here, a number of random objects floated about, like small toys of coral made to look like sea creatures, or stone carving tools, or in a few rare instances shining bits and baubles from the surface like utensils or a dirty snow globe covered in green algae. 

“Do you children collect these as toys?” Fluttershy asked, looking at a wooden toy ship that was definitely from the surface. Ritigiv gulped at her but nodded.

“Y-yes, we sometimes are lucky enough to grab things from when the warriors come back from a raid,” he said, swimming up to the floating stone carving tools, “Although I took this from the carving site of a worker one day, because I wanted to be able to practice.”

“We come here to play and plan for the future,” Dravma declared, picking up an old, mostly chipped harpoon and waved it about in a rather ungainly flourish, “Since none use this tunnel anymore, and it’s deep enough to block sound, we can be as loud as we want without any adults finding us. The guards barely pay the unused tunnels any mind, so sneaking in or out is easy.”

“Heheh, it’s a clubhouse where you practice and play at the stuff you want to be good at. Fishing for cutie marks. The Fishy Mark Crusaders,” Pinkie Pie said jovially, “You guys should have capes.”

“Pinkie, don’t think these little fellas know what cutie marks are, an’ we ain’t got time ta be wastin’ besides. Twilight, ya still got a magical lowdown on Charybdis’ location?” asked Applejack, to which Twilight gave a swift nod. The entire time she’d been keeping tabs on the arcane energies she could sense, and just as Dravma had said the trench he indicated the sahuagin shamans made their territory all but bubbled with the sensation of their dark, ritualistic magic. It did nothing to mask the much greater intensity she felt from beyond that trench, a now steady sensation of power boring into her senses. She could feel right where Charybdis was, and the incredible magic gathering there.

Magic that quite frankly didn’t seem normal to Twilight, yet had the faintest sensation of the familiar. 

“Something wrong? You’re making a face,” Flash said, and Twilight blinked.

“I don’t know. I can sense Charybdis clearly, and the ritual she’s preforming is gathering to a fever pitch. I can tell she’s gathering magic from beyond just herself, but I don’t know from where. What’s more, something feels... different. I can’t put my hoof on it.”

“Bottom line is, ya can tell how close we are ta her?” asked Applejack.

“Yes. These mine tunnels must not be too far off from the rift Charybdis lairs in,” Twilight said, and Rarity turned her attention to the pair of young sahuagin.

“I don’t suppose either of you happen to know if one of these tunnels opens up into your Deep Mistress’ rift?”

“No way,” Ritigiv said, “No one would be foolish enough to dig a tunnel all the way into Her sacred lair!”

“A few might get close to the rift wall,” Dravma said with a shrug, “But none that would break through. The only way actually into the Deep Mistress’ lair is past the Path of Deep Worship, watched over by the shamans themselves.”

“Might be true fer normal folk,” said Applejack, patting her shillelagh, “But not fer us. Twilight, I’m gonna try somethin’.”

“You’re not going to enter your Inheritor form, are you? If you do, Charybdis would sense it,” Twilight warned, but Applejack just waved her off and went to the center of the room, floating down to the floor where she placed one hoof on the stone while holding the shillelagh close with her other limb.

“Don’t need ta go full power. Ain’t sure ‘bout the rest o’ you gals, but I know I’ve been feelin’ changes in me even when I ain’t transformed. Thinkin’ a part o’ the power stays with us, even when we ain’t all gussied up an’ shiny. Ya’ll been feelin’ it too, haven’t ya?”

“Now that you mention it, I have been feeling different,” Fluttershy said, “My senses are sharper. I can sometimes hear everypony’s heartbeat, even when I’m not trying to.”

“I suppose I’ve noticed a few differences myself,” Rarity admitted, “As if my magic has somehow grown more dense.”

“When I was cooking I accidentally touched the stove when it was on, but didn’t get any ouchies from a burn,” said Pinkie with a shrug. Twilight took a second to consider this, lips pursed in thought.

“While the magic remains mostly contained to our Relics, it makes sense that our bodies retain some of that power. The purpose of the Inheritor Project was to help safely reintroduce alicorn magic to the world once the Cycle was repaired, and eventually that would mean Inheritors would gradually become closer to being like the ones they are Inheritors of.”

“We’re not about to sprout wings like you, I take it?” said Rarity, “Or horns, or both in some cases.”

“Do I think you’ll all become full alicorns? I... don’t know,” Twilight admitted, “But for now I think it’s safe to say we all have to get used to changes. At any rate, Applejack, do you think you’ve retained some of Althea’s power without accessing your Relic?”

“That’s the idea,” Applejack replied, closing her eyes and pressing her hoof hard against the stone. Slowly Twilight saw the faintest glow of burning orange and gold light flow from Applejack’s hoof and enter the ground. She could feel the magic, but fortunately she didn’t think it was strong enough to reveal their presence to Charybdis. Twilight also had a fair idea of what Applejack was up to.

Each of her friends had unique powers as Inheritors, aside from the more generalized benefits that came with the territory. In Applejack’s case she’d inherited a talent her forebear Althea had in regards to the natural metals, ores, and very rocks of the earth. Whether something be of natural make, or forged by hands or hooves, anything that Applejack touched she could gain an innate understanding of its structure. Shape, makeup, strengths and weaknesses, Applejack only had to touch something to know these elements. She could also then either enhanced or weaken those elements, turning a mere sharp sword into something unbreakable, or rendering it dull and useless. Armor could be made resistant beyond measure, or turned weak as thin paper. The same applied to structures both artificial or natural... including the very mine tunnels they were in.

After about half a minute Applejack’s deep green eyes snapped open. “Got it. I can sense all o’ these tunnels, an’ I know where the walls ‘r at their thinnest. More n’ that, I know which one is close ta that big ol’ rift Charybdis is hidin’ out in.”

“Excellent work Applejack!” Twilight said, “Can you lead us to the entrance of the tunnel we need?”

“I can do a dang sight better than that, Twilight. This tunnel’s got a wall adjacent ta where we need ta go, an’ I can weaken it enough ta break right on through. From there it’s a near straight shot ta ‘nother tunnel that’ll take us right to Charybdis’ back door.”

“Then we kick her in the back door!” Pinkie said, doing a flip, “Kapow!”

“What... what in the cursed surface are you creatures?” Ritigiv whispered, backing up until he was nearly hiding behind Dravma, who also was having difficulty keeping on a grave face as they looked at Twilight her companions in open mouthed dismay.

“You aren’t normal soft kin. What kind of magic are you using?” Dravma demanded, brandishing his spear, “I thought you were just crazy soft kin, but if you’re more than that... if you’re actually a threat...”

Twilight felt a strong stab of regret, but she tempered it with knowing it was for the best as she turned towards the two young ones and cast out a simple sleeping spell. Dravma and Ritigiv both went still and fell into a listless sleep. Carefully Twilight gathered the pair up and laid them down near the room’s exit, while her friends gathered around her. Fluttershy especially looked perturbed as her seapony tail lashed left and right.

“They’re not bad kids. It makes me so... peeved that they’ve had to live in a place like this. All of them have.”

“It’s unfortunate, to say the least,” agreed Rarity, “Who knows how much creative spirit has been crushed by having to grow up in this environment.”

“We’re gonna help them all somehow, right?” Pinkie Pie said, “I don’t really know how other than to give ol’ Charybdunce a major attitude adjustment via violent persuasion. But after that...?”

“After that there’s a’ whole lot o’ bad blood ta be dealt with an’ it won’t be gettin’ cleaned up anytime soon,” Applejack said flatly, “Fact is, once their leader is out o’ commission, it’s gonna be up ta these fish folk ta sort out their own mess. Even if we help, and I ain’t sayin’ we can’t, but if we do... gonna be a real long haul ta make things better ‘round these parts.”

“Defeating Charybdis won’t fix the Abyss, the sahaugin, their war with the seaponies, or undo generations of pain, slavery, and bloodshed,” Twilight said, voice pained but with strength renewed and hope alight, “But it’s a start. And all good things must begin somewhere, with the first hoof offered in peace and friendship. For now, we fight, and remove the biggest shadow darkening these waters.”

----------

Maintaining the ritual with fewer shamans was a strain, especially with the flow of magic from the human world having been cut off, but the portal was opening, inch by inch. Charybdis could almost re-establish contact with her Kraken, and she sensed his power spiking as if in use. A battle? She couldn’t tell, and her attention was drawn to other maters.

For one, she’d sent Divistus and a cadre of shamans to set up an ambush at the entrance to the Great Rift. Twilight and her friends had to be using some manner of protective magic to cloak their presence, but such stealthy magic was not easy to concentrate on and her shamans had rituals to counter such things. The foolish alicorn and those with her would not get past Divistus without revealing themselves, and while she had little faith her shamans would actually stop the ponies, at least they might slow them down or wound them enough to make dealing with them easier herself.

In the meantime, she had guests to entertain. 

Ulgriv had played his role well, although Charybdis was surprised by the young warrior. His faith was quite a bit more potent than she expected, yet doubt clouded his heart. Such an odd combination. As she’d ridden within his body, used it as her own hoof, she’d felt his devotion to her. It was remarkably pure. Despite that she’d sensed the questions gnawing at his mind and soul. He could no longer bring himself to hate the surfacers, or the seapony ‘soft kin’. Although the days he’d spent with them were few, it had been enough for him to see things to make him question things.

Troubling, but not unprecedented. She had encountered a few such sahuagin in the past who wondered as to the need to hate all seaponies. Charybdis had never culled such anomalies, for there was no need to do so. Her own kin often proved such doubts meaningless, in due time. She did not hate her own race, but she did despise how readily they continued their own downfall into obscurity and never spared a chance to kill her sahuagin. To offer peace was pointless. She’d never considered pursuing it, for any sahuagin that had tried on their own never lived long anyway.

Charybdis had long ago learned the lesson that the only way to change a people was through overwhelming power. No other method worked. And soon she’d have all the power she needed to bring bountiful change to this world, the human world, and who knew, perhaps even beyond that one day.

Yes, one day, even death would cease to have power over anyone, and only Charybdis would have brought that gift to all. 

Lost in her thoughts, she had actually missed what one of her new ‘guests’ had just said. Turning a pale head towards the noise, she said, “Could you repeat that? Sorry, I was just imagining my imminent victory.”

Suspended in chains of ephemeral magic forged of darkness suffused with strands of light, Aria and Sonata were bound around their limbs and long siren tails, but Charybdis had left their mouths free so the siren sisters could talk. She was a little eager to speak to these two, partially for the nostalgia they inspired due to relatively fond memories of their eldest sister. 

Of course that fondness did not go both ways, as Aria snarled deeply in her throat at Charybdis’ words, “Delusional is what you are. Get these chains off me and I’ll rearrange that smug face of yours.”

“If you can even call it a face,” Sonata said, making a queasy expression as she stuck her tongue out at Charybdis, “You look like a beach of dead things thrown up on a mannequin.”

Charybdis couldn’t help but snort, gesturing at “herself”, or at least the part of herself visible to the sirens within the present environs. “I’m afraid I’ve abandoned most standards of personal beauty in favor of more important factors, like power and ruling my people.”

It was within the bronze corpse of Bastion Gnosis that she had brought the sirens, and given Ulgriv leave to join the ambush forces with Divistus with the promise that the young warrior, should he survive the day, would become one of her new chosen champions. The once marvelous home of one of the alicorn’s many Orders, Bastion Gnosis had been one part gigantic city-building and one part limitless research facility for the arcane arts. The vast majority of it was buried under endless tons of rock and sediment, but the top portion of the fortress city’s dome remained exposed, with holes rent in it by time and whatever incredible forces had once led to the Bastion’s fall from whatever higher plane it had once occupied that bygone era. 

The hole in the dome’s roof led directly into the Bastion’s main, spherical chamber, where once countless alicorn researchers had passed on their way to different portals that would take them to the Bastion’s numerous other hallways and chambers. Even with centuries to explore it, Charybdis believed she’d only uncovered at most a third of the Bastion’s rooms and secrets. She had installed a rough patchwork of repairs to the Bastion’s lighting and power systems, providing the main chamber with a flickering glow of green light from sparking crystals and conduits. These served to illuminate herself and the two sirens she kept magically bound near a pedestal upon which she rested a very important object; the Eye of the Sea.

It still amused her to no end that seaponies over the generations had been searching for Domare’s long lost Relic, unknowing of it’s true nature or the fact that Charybdis herself had taken it from her sister during their final battle over Aqualania, so long ago. The memory of that fight was one of both triumph and pain for Charybdis, who had dealt her sister a final, fatal wound, taken the object of power she knew would one day lead her to greater power, but also had marked the beginning of her current troubles.

She’d taken on the form she now occupied that day, drawing upon all of the unstable soul magic at her disposal to defeat Scylla, and as a result her own body had become irrevocably mutated much in the manner the Terror Beasts her shamans could forge did. Within the pale lit chamber all Aria and Sonata would be able to see would be a bone white, sickly tendril leading from the opening in the roof, like a ropey intestine. This tendril of flesh would lead to the torso of a seapony mare, a skirt-like crust of urchin shell spreading around her waist, while her torso was covered in barnacle-like nodules and coral growths. Her face was a ghost of the seapony princess that once was, half covered by tendril growths akin to an anemone. Her mane was slicked back with larger tendrils, a mane of literal cephalopod tentacles. Even her shining, white blue eyes had the hourglass iris’ of an octopus. 

And this was just the extension of her main body, which remained floating above the Bastion. The shadow of that leviathan bulk was where the rope of flesh that connected the “avatar” of Charybdis’ still somewhat seapony body to her main body. That body was just too enormous to be very versatile, so Charybdis used this smaller extension for tasks suited to it. Like shooting the breeze with prisoners. She could chat while still directing the main portion of her attention to managing the portal ritual, and she did have an important matter to get to with these two ladies. 

“Speaking of power, how has Adagio been?” Charybdis asked, “I confess I know a little about what my apprentice got up to once she left my charge, but I wouldn’t mind hearing from more direct sources.”

“Piss off!” Aria snapped, “If it wasn’t for you, we might never have ended up in that damn world of hairless apes in the first place.”

“What do you care about Dagi anyway? You already took what you wanted from her, and we’re going to get it back!” Sonata declared, struggling in place, although quite unable to break the bindings of raw magic holding her still.

“I imagine you’re referring to the shard of her soul I have in my possession?” Charybdis said, and held up a slime encrusted hoof. A pulsation of red light emanated from the hoof, and then a spark of intense light appeared above it, flickering with colors of deep indigo and wine red light. “As you can see, I’ve been keeping it safe.”

“That’s...Dagi’s soul?” Sonata breathed, blinking at the beautiful pulsation of light. 

“The piece of it she gave me in exchange for my teachings,” Charybdis confirmed, “It was not hard to convince her to part with it. When she first came to me she was such a prideful and ambitious young lady. She’d heard all the rumors about the Witch of the Abyss, and willingly sought me out rather than steer clear like most sensible folk. She wanted power. She wanted to be strong. Feelings I could certainly relate to, so I had no qualms in taking her own as a student, even if it certainly made some of my devoted shamans jealous. But they took to the presence of one of the ‘ancient kin’ more so than if Adagio had been a seapony ‘soft kin’.”

“The heck are you babbling about you crusty hag?” Aria demanded, “What’s all this ‘ancient kin’ business about?”

Charybdis floated forward and raised her left hoof to a recoiling Aria, who barred teeth and growled as Charybdis ran that hoof over Aria’s chest, right where her siren gem would have once been. 

“Sirens,” Charybdis said, “Even in my time you were a rare breed. Tell me, what do you remember of your parents?”

“We... don’t,” Aria admitted, Sonata nodding with a grimace.

“Yeah, it’s always been Dagi looking after us, far back as I can remember. I think I kind of sort of remember there being others, but I must have been really tiny back then because it’s all just smoke in the brain now.”

“Unsurprising. There are so few sirens left in the world that all of you together would barely make a small village if all gathered in one place. Blame your magical origins, i suppose. An all female species, requiring certain... potent seed from other races to bear children, and once males of suitably powerful species no longer were commonly available it’s little wonder your kind dwindled to near nothing. But still, the sahuagin, among the oldest of races, still remember siren-kind as the eldest of the sea faring species. The ‘ancient kin’. And the most powerful of them, the progenitor of many ocean going species, was none other than Domare herself.”

“Domare!?” Sonata shouted... then paused and blinked several times, “Who is that again?”

“I can see that Adagio inherited the smarts from your particular genetic pool,” Charybdis drawled, then glance at Aria, “Also guessing all the aggression went to you, if all that teeth gnashing is any indication.”

“See my previous statement of pissing off,” Aria groused, “So let me see if I can guess your evil plan. You need me and Sonata, along with Adagio’s soul shard there, to try and crack open this Eye of the Sea?”

“More or less,” Charybdis admitted with a smile, “You already have seen how the Relics and their Inheritors function. Sadly, much to my dismay, I am not an Inheritor. Domare’s soul could have reincarnated among seapony kind, as we are a distantly related species to you sirens, but it didn’t shock me that much to learn that it was a siren that was the former goddess of the sea’s Inheritor instead. Or rather, three sisters.”

“Wait, how does that work?” Aria said, brow creasing in confusion.

Charybdis swam over to the Eye of the Sea, the gleaming pearl waiting in the darkness between the two sirens. She placed the light of Adagio’s soul shard upon the needle-like sliver of red that was mounted in a bronze amulet fused to the gem. The shard of a siren gem bloomed to crimson life, illuminating the fact that next to it were two recesses for similar shards. The sight made both Aria and Sonata’s eyes widen as Charybdis spoke, “I can’t be completely sure, but several of the former ‘deities’ that divided their power went about it by splitting the power between multiple Relics. Domare was powerful enough that one would think she’d have needed to split it between more than one Relic as well, but as far as I can tell she had just the one. Perhaps instead she decided to split her soul, rather than her power, so that she’d have multiple Inheritors rather than multiple Relics. That’s my theory, at any rate. When I learned Adagio was an Inheritor I thought just a fragment of her soul alone would be enough to unlock the Relic, but I didn’t discover until later I was missing two components, and knowing she had two sisters it wasn’t hard to guess what was missing. I’ve been waiting to have meet the two of you for a very long time.”

“Y-you keep away from us!” Sonata shouted, “No way I’m giving you even the teensy tiniest piece of my soul! Hooves off!”

Charybdis’ smile deepened, “No need to be so afraid. It won’t hurt too much, and when all is said and done I don’t intend to kill either of you. Indeed I think I’d rather keep the two of you around as bargaining chips for dealing with your sister. Adagio being what she is now, I do need some insurance for our opening negotiations once I’m established on Earth.”

“Adagio won’t negotiate with you. She’ll tear your head off,” Aria promised, then narrowed her eyes in question, “How do you know about what she is now, anyway?”

“Hah, there’s more than a few weak spots in the wall between Equestria and the human world’s various realms. I’ve had an eye or two to keep tabs on Adagio and her growth among her new Hollow associates. With the two of you in my possession I can work out a new deal with her, I’m sure. Now then, shall we begin the process? It takes surprisingly little effort to shave off a piece of soul, even if it’d be easier if you still had siren gems to act as focuses for the process.”

She floated back from the two captive sirens, and extended her hooves out, one towards each of them. Her flesh opened as if on its own, in a disgusting writing of skin. Blood seeped out but did not drift aimlessly in the water, but instead moved upon Charybdis’ will as she chanted under her breath ancient words of power. Dark arcane symbols took shape from the blood, forming two magic circles of soul magic as Charybdis drew forth her power and directed towards the struggling sirens. 

Like hunting snakes, a pair of black tendrils edged with faint white light extended from Charybdis’ hooves, moving through the magic circles in front of them, and then shot like spears into the chests of Aria and Sonata. The two sirens both let out pained gasps and shuddered. Charybdis coughed politely, “I did say it wouldn’t hurt too much. Do bear with it, ladies. I’m just taking a little off the top, soul-wise.”

Despite her words, Charybdis was frowning inwardly. She’d felt the defeat of her three champions. While she hadn’t expected them to be able to outright stop the Treasury, it was still a little disappointing that they hadn’t lasted very long against just one of Twilight’s idiot friends. Perhaps if so much of her own power wasn’t being tied up elsewhere she could have empowered the three more, but... well no point in worrying over it. As far as she could tell those three still lived, so perhaps if she pushed a little extra power in them they might recover fast enough to be of some use once Twilight showed her face.

Where was that damned lavender lickspittle? She should have showed up at the top of the Great Rift by now, but her senses connected to Divistus showed the shaman and his fellows remained waiting up there with no sign of the Princess and her entourage of merry idiots. Were they just moving slower than Charybdis anticipated? Waiting for the Treasury to break through and for their rainbow colored friend to join them?  

Or could it be that Charybdis had missed something? No, there was only one way into her lair, and she knew Twilight was coming. But Charybdis’ instincts were telling her something wasn’t right. She just couldn’t put a hoof on what. 

Yet it was at the very moment she was puzzling over that feeling that Charybdis’ senses picked up a sudden tremor. At first she wasn’t sure where the tremor had come from, but a moment later her main body moved one of its many gigantic eyes to notice a cloud of rock sediment rising from the south wall of the bottom of the chasm she resided in. 

Impossible. What had just happened? 

Stirring, the bulk of her main body let out a long, angered groan like the sound of a hundred enraged whales. In her many sided vision from eyes across her body’s great bulk Charybdis could see the rock sediment clearing up gradually, revealing that a sizeable hole had been punched through the very rock wall itself. 

And rising out of that hole, a hole that Charybdis suddenly realized corresponded to the general location of the mining tunnels from the trench on the other side, were five colorful figures.

----------

Flash heard the tremor and knew Twilight and the girls had broken through.

His heart was beating much faster than he knew it should. Twilight had asked him to stay behind, but it didn’t change that he felt he should have stayed by her side. His fear for her corresponded directly with the fierce warmth in his heart whenever he now pictured the bright faced, intelligent mare in his mind. But it was because of that very love that he was willing to trust her, to put faith in her.

She’d given him a task, one he knew was important and agreed needed doing.

The Soul Reaper turned pegasus had remained in the small playroom cave the two sahuagin children had shown them to while Twilight and the others had gone to break through multiple tunnel walls to basically excavate a path into Charybdis’ lair. 

Twilight had asked him to free the seapony slaves from the mines and quarry while she and her friends confronted Charybdis. Realistically he knew this was the correct course of action. With Rainbow Dash busy elsewhere he was the fastest among them with his Flash Step, and his Zanpaktou would give him more than enough combat versatility to rapidly defeat a large number of sahuagin guards. He could then protect and guide the freed slaves and keep them safe until a means to get them on board the Treasury was possible.

If he didn’t do this there was no telling if the sahuagin would harm the slaves or not once they realized Charybdis was defeated. Or, in the event that Twilight and the girls lost, Flash still would be charged with getting as many of the slaves out of the Abyss to safety as he could. He didn’t even want to think about that possibility, but Twilight knew she was going up against high odds and was thinking ahead to save as many lives as possible no matter what the battle’s outcome was.

And in his heart, he considered Twilight the one whom he’d serve both as a man and as a warrior. Whatever loyalty he had to the Soul Society remained, and he’d always consider Captain Celestia his mentor, but Flash Sentry knew now that when he intoned the release of his Zanpaktou it was forevermore going to be in service to a Princess.

”Serve faithfully; Kochi Yonjinbo.”

He couldn’t be sure, but somehow his spiritual pressure felt sharper than before. The sensation from his Zanpaktou as it took shape into the large bladed tonfa on his right forearm was potent and heated. His body was outlined in a white haze of spiritual pressure that seemed to him denser than he was used to. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Flash Sentry decided not to question it. 

He had a job to do, and even if it was just a moral boost, he’d take any help he could get.

----------

This was it. Twilight had been in this position before, coming head-on at a powerful foe on the cusp of victory, prepared to do all she could to tear their evil plans down around their head. Never ceased to put her heart in her throat, but this time there was a sensation of almost analytical calm that was riding along with the adrenaline. 

She could take in the depths of Charybdis’ lair in a heartbeat, scanning it all as she and her friends rose out of the cloud of silt sand kicked up the Applejack’s rather forceful shattering of the last wall within the mine tunnels. The walls all dropped at shear, slightly angled slopes to a circular area at the bottom several hundred meters wide. Red light made a harsh coating over the darkness, stemming from an immense series of jagged magical symbols that were carved along the length of a bronze dome that rose like a cracked egg from the center of the rift’s bottom. 

She recognized it. Broken, worn by endless centuries, but the shining bronze somehow remained distinct. Astra’s home, Bastion Gnosis, where the ancient alicorn had studied magic alongside her father, Tomearchis. Suddenly it was no longer so strange how Charybdis knew so much about the alicorns, or how she’d been able to develop her magical powers so extensively. With access to whatever knowledge could be salvaged from that alicorn Bastion, Charybdis was probably among the most dangerous spellcasters of the current age. 

Of Charybdis herself, Twilight could only look at the dark shadow that hovered over the remains of Bastion Gnosis. Bathed in light from the red sigils glowing upon the Bastion, the shape could gradually be seen more clearly the closer Twilight got. It was difficult to discern its size, but the bulk of it was at least fifty meters wide. At first Twilight thought she was looking at nautilus, a sort of massive misshapen mollusk, but as details became clearer it was obvious this was at best just part of the monstrosity that Charybdis had become. 

The conical main body was black as pitch, but was covered in sickly white stripes across a shell that twisted back on itself like an overgrown, partially melted conch shell. Ropes of thickly muscled flesh formed a pulsating mass along the central band of the body, from which eye after gigantic eye flicked about like pale white globes. Masses of tendrils dropped down from the lower portion of the body, growing out hundreds of feet to end in squid-like tips covered in gnarled claws. From the mouth of the nautilus body the shell split into a mass of bulging, pebbly muscle that grew into three long necks, like the heads of humongous eels. Razor sharp fins rose from the crests of these eel necks, and ended in heads less like eels and more like gnawing sea serpents. The central head was larger than the other two, and instead of mere rows of sharp teeth, its mouth opened up upon a single, massive white eye that was surrounded by eight black tentacles. An eye that was now solidly fixated upon Twilight and her approaching companions.

Charybdis’ voice boomed in the depths.

You. I did not give you enough credit, it seems, Twilight Sparkle. Snuck into my home whilst I’m in the middle of something. Still suicidal, but I’ll give you the point for gumption.

Twilight didn’t immediately respond, her eye drawn to something unusual. Amid the many tendrils dropping down from the center of Charybdis’ body was one that didn’t look like the others, sickly white and thick, like some manner of umbilical cord. This cord dropped down into the open, jagged hole leading into Bastion Gnosis. 

Now, there was no small amount of magic filling the area. There were magical circles floating in a giant formation around Charybdis and lines of raw energy were flowing up from those circles and into a much larger circle that hovered above. There Twilight saw a hole opening in the very fabric of reality itself, a portal, one she knew must lead to the human world. It was already a meter wide, and growing larger by the moment. Her senses were overloaded by the raw amount of magic all around her, but even so she felt a concentration of it within Bastion Gnosis itself. Was that part of the portal ritual? It was impossible to tell. Charybdis was not alone down here, either. While there were nowhere near as many as Twilight had thought there’d be, she still saw at least a dozen sahuagin shamans surrounding bubbling cauldrons within which they were giving their own lifeblood to help fuel the ritual taking place.

It looked like she and her friends had arrived just in time to stop this, but only if they acted quickly.

Rarity and Applejack were at her right side, while Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were on her left. She only hoped Rainbow Dash had managed to beat Morgawr and the other sahuagin champions and would be able to join them soon. This was going to take all of them together, she suspected. 

“Charybdis!” she shouted, spreading her wings and swimming forward while brandishing Astra’s mace, “Stop this madness now!”

The central head of Charybdis’ body rose up and the eye within its mouth flicked with a translucent eyelid giving Twilight an incredulous blink.

What madness? Bringing my sahuagin to a new world to prosper in? Seeking greater power over the very nature of the soul so that I might preserve us all from death’s ravages? Taking the power of Domare for myself, for I doubt the three who are her natural Inheritors could make better use of it than me? No, Twilight Sparkle, the only madness here is your own in bringing those you love to a place where they will only face death alongside you. Now... where is that damnable Soul Reaper of yours? I owe him a debt of pain especially, and I don’t see him with you.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but he’s taking care of something more important,” Twilight stated plainly. By now she and her friends had reached the edge of Bastion Gnosis, although they stayed a short distance back for Charybdis herself took up a large area just above the fallen alicorn stronghold. The sahuagin shamans within their magic circles did nothing to attack them, wholly focused upon their ritual casting, and most likely not daring to presume to interfere with their goddess’ confrontation with those choosing to face her.

Twilight glanced to her left and right at her friends, and each of them responded with returning nods as they drew forth their Relics. There was no presumption here of doing battle with Charybdis with anything short of their full power. Charybdis’ body shook with an echo of laughter as her many eyes, including her central one, focused upon the mares floating before her immense form. Tentacles writhed and started coiling to strike, as all of her heads reared up to look down like an imperious beast upon the morsels before her.

I suppose we could bandy some more words back and forth, but it seems you’ve resolved yourselves to continue interfering with me, and I certainly have no intention of offering surrender when I’m so close to achieving my life’s greatest work to date. So what say you, Twilight Sparkle? Are you prepared to end this farce?

Twilight took a deep breath, her mace held before her. A flaming aura of intense violet magic began to boil forth from the Relic as Twilight called to the power within as she stared up into the monstrous visage of Charybdis’ towering form.

“Beyond prepared, Charybdis.”