Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls

by thatguyvex


Episode 176: The Zero Plan

Episode 176: The Zero Plan

Sunset’s breath had halted. This had nothing to do with spiritual pressure. Much as with her first encounter with Medley, there was a disturbing lack of reiatsu to be felt, at least from the shadows emerging from within that iridescent pillar of celestial gold. Sombra’s and Scorpan’s reiatsu was a turbulent twin storm, at least until a voice clear as a silver bell rang out with the tone of a stern elder sister lecturing rowdy young siblings.

“Enough of that. Such a display is poor manners even when one is not in the company of those who cannot readily withstand it.”

The two men restrained their reiatsu, if only because it was clearly overwhelming some of the Soul Reaper Lieutenants present, all of whom were far more visibly sweating than their Captains. On Sunset’s side of the table it was clear Scootaloo’s aunts had not been doing so well either, each turning drained as bleached sheets, while Cloudy Quarts was breathing heavily until the tempest of reiatsu eased up a bit. 

The speaker had emerged from the pillar first, slowly followed and flanked, two at each side, by four others. Sunset took in their appearances, etching them into her mind, for there could be no doubt that these were the individuals most responsible for everything that had happened to her and her friends since the very first day she’d picked up her Zanpaktou. Starlight Glimmer may have arranged some of the particulars of that event, but Starlight herself was motivated by plots and ploys enacted by the Zero Division, tracing Sunburst’s own horrible fate to the designs of the five individuals approaching the meeting table.

The woman who had spoken was as near perfectly carved a figure of matronly authority and power as Sunset had seen in human form. This wasn’t Chrysalis’ sinfully impossible figure of obsidian seduction incarnate, but rather an alabaster icon of a motherly goddess cast in ivory and woven in gold, with a face too stern to be called sexy or cute, yet far too attractive to be seen as anything other than beautiful. There was a plain elegance to her clothing, almost humble in its imitation of the Soul Reaper’s black robes and sandals, yet her white haori swept lower than a normal Captain’s coat and graced her arms in a volume of white fabric like shifting clouds. The sword tucked through a white sash was similar in it’s pure white sheath and handle, as if cast and forged from shining pearl. Her figure was hard to define under her clothes, but Sunset could tell the woman continued her matronly qualities with wide, swaying hips and enough bust to notice under the thick robes. Yet her motions held no hint of anything other than raw confidence and authority, as if every single step was one declaring dominion of all around her.

Sunset found she had trouble looking directly at the woman’s eyes, crisp aquamarine blue.

She turned her attention to the others, recognizing Medley on the lead woman’s, whom she presumed was Glory, immediate left. Further left was a man with rich blue skin akin to a dawn sky, his body firm and well muscled. It wasn’t like Tirek’s overblown extravaganza of shredded abs, but rather the body of a man who had no room for extravagance or softness in him. It was a body of lean, hard muscle, not built up for display, just kept strong for pure utilitarian purposes. This continued to the man’s plain yet strong features, with somehow even his head of light pink hair looking dull and functional in a way pink hair should probably never look, tied into a traditional samurai’s topknot. His expression was like a freshly sharpened knife, keen and uncompromising. Eyes of a dark blue shade akin to an ocean storm judged everything around him and somehow found it wanting. Even his clothes, the same black robes and white haori worn by his fellows, was wrapped in a tight and simple military style with no room for flowing or loose bits. The blade he wore at his hip had this same quality of hard function, a sheath of dark iron, and a hilt in which Sunset thought she saw the small whirring of internal cogs. 

On Glory’s other side were a flamboyant man and equally striking young woman, both of which Sunset had a hard time even comprehending were members of Zero Division. With his slicked forward, long purple hair, bare chest of copper skin, and flame etched sleeves, the man looked more like someone who belonged in a band from a few decades back than one of the architects of the world’s present misery. Yet there was no denying the fire red blade he kept stuck through his equally red sash held a gleam of power to it that nobody could mistake. As for the girl next to him, Sunset felt a weird sense of familiarity about her, if only because that neon pink pigtails, however streaked with crème white, was a dead ringer for Pinkie’s, with similar levels of puffiness cranked up to unnatural levels. The girl wore a rather stylistically altered set of black robes and white haori, specifically in the white pleated dress it turned into at the waist with black lace and stockings that crawled up the girl’s legs. The girl was a bit on the chubby side, but moved with bouncy grace beside her fellows, all but half floating along with a pink parasol spinning in her hands, blurring the white skull patterns stitched into it... which Sunset had a feeling had to be the girl’s weapon for she saw no actual blade sheathed anywhere on her. 

Sunset was already familiar with Medley, but still took a second to look over the final Zero Division member, as if looking for some clue as to what to expect from this sudden and unexpected arrival. To Sunset’s surprise, Medley locked eyes with her for a second, and there was a hint of something in the woman’s eyes that Sunset thought was... caution? A hint of warning? It vanished before Sunset could gauge it further and Medley looked away, while the half floating girl with pink hair bubbled up a laugh, eyeing Discord.

“You know if you hadn’t dropped your wards at the last second, we would’ve busted through anyway, so thanks for rolling out the red carpet, Discord.”

Discord’s face was like a scowl of a scarecrow, his hands wrapped around the top of his cane and eyes shaded by his hat until they were unfriendly yellow slits, “Well Minty, I didn’t want to see the surrounding city blocks demolished by the clash of dimensional energies that pillar creates when it smashes through such wards, so I had little choice. Had Screwloose not warned me first, that tragedy may have occurred anyway, so... you know, thanks for that heart attack.”

“Aww, you’re welcome,” Minty said, “I do so love giving them out.”

“Nice spread you’ve got here Discord,” said the dark skinned man with the purple hair, giving a broad smile that seemed to drink in everyone present, and when his eyes passed over Sunset she felt... a strange press of something on her heart that left her feeling very uncomfortable as the man continued to speak, “I can smell the potential bursting out of some of these kids. Always had an eye for talent, didn’t you?”

“I don’t claim to be the connoisseur of ‘talent’ like you are, Blossom. Honestly I’m rather surprised you and Minty are here. Bowtie and Medley I can understand following Glory around, as they have a modicum of responsibility. The two of you prefer your play and distractions more, as I recall.” Discord’s words were pointed, edging past the realm of politeness as the five Zero Division members got close, with Sombra being the one at the end of the table they approached.

At least until literally everything shifted. Sunset wasn’t even certain how it happened. It was like reality just bent in the same way one’s body might in a carnival mirror. She still felt no reiatsu, but just like when Blossom looked at her, she felt something pressing on her as the world shifted. It only took the span of a blink, but suddenly the meeting table was altered. No longer one long rectangle, it had expanded and shifted orientation to become a huge rounded C shape, with the open end facing the Zero Division. Sombra and Scorpan were still seated at either end, but now Sunset and the Coalition group was seated in the C’s middle, with Discord directly across from Zero Division as the five of them entered the C.

Glory’s eyes gleamed, and Sunset instinctively knew it was her who had willed the change. Again the feeling of something pressing on her skin and she saw five chairs just appear from nowhere in the middle of the area. Each was woven of ivory and gold, high backed and interlaced with symbols of clouds and sunrays. Glory sat in the center chair, while her companions took up the others. She pointedly took her sword from where it was kept in her sash and laid it across her lap, like a harsh parent holding a strap or whipping branch as she eyed the table left to right. 

“We are not here for idle chit chat,” she said, as much to the other Zero Division members as to those seated at the now altered table. “Minty, Blossom, restrain yourselves.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll keep it down,” said Minty, holding her hands up, and Blossom sighed and kicked his legs up, resting his hands behind his head.

“This is your show, Glory, but you know the rules. We’re here because we choose to be. Do your thing, I’ll listen in. If my tune shifts, it shifts, got it?”

Sunset felt Rarity shift next to her and caught her friend’s look, which was shared by Fluttershy as well, who’d also taken note of the fact that the Zero Division didn’t seem like they were entirely homogeneous in their attitudes. Glory was in charge, nominally, but this group clearly showed some internal differences between its members. 

Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie were busy with thoughts of their own, and far less inclined to keep quiet and observe. Applejack stood first, hands slamming down on the table, “Ya’ll are the big hogs in charge o’ this whole pigsty o’ a mess you’ve turned the world into!? Well good! We’ve got a lot to say to ya’ll, not the least o’ which is what n’ utter crazyland bannapants tarnation yer plannin’!?”

Blossom let out a low whistle, glancing at Medley, “She’s a loud, passionate one, isn’t she? One of those girls with the magic touch?”

“Yes,” replied Medley, “That one’s Applejack. Her mother is right over there, the current ‘Kenpachi’.” She pointed at Sweet Cider, who scowled deep enough to crush rock between her teeth. This caused Bowtie to take note, leaning forward to examine Sweet Cider carefully.

“The title ‘Kenpachi’ is worthy of some respect, although it does only pertain to the Gotei 13. Impressive enough that one so young holds it, assuming she is worthy.”

She is sittin’ right here, an’ can hear ya just fine if ya talk to her directly instead o’ being a rude bastard,” Sweet Cider said, causing Bowtie to look her in the eyes, unwavering, measuring. 

“Noted,” he said without any sign of insult or pleasure, just stating a simple fact. 

“So what are  you jerks doing here?” snapped Rainbow Dash, electricity buzzing round her body, curling through her hair, and lighting up her eyes cobalt blue. “Don’t think we sent you any freakin’ invites.”

Glory’s eyes didn’t shift, but Sunset sensed the change in the air, the imperceptible yet monstrous weight of the woman’s attention turning towards herself and her friends. Glory’s voice was not loud. She wasn’t shouting. It didn’t raise by a single octave. Yet the command in it was as indisputable as gravity. 

“Be silent until spoken to, young lady.”

Rainbow Dash’s face grew heated and her mouth opened to say something, but her eyes widened a bit as no sound came out. Sunset turned to Dash, about to ask her what was wrong, until she realized her voice was simply... gone, as well. It didn’t take more than a second of looking at her friends to realize the same had occurred to all of them, Pinkie looking confused as she tried making a bunch of random noises to no effect, while Applejack was shouting without sound. Rarity was more composed, lips pressed firmly as she touched Fluttershy’s shoulder and nodded to the other girl, who in turn started to try and calm the others down with hand gestures.

“Relax,” said Medley, “Glory can’t steal your voice. It’s just a silencing Kido, without the incantation.”

“Medley, you don’t have to explain that to them,” Glory stated, “But I don’t wish to waste time on the banal queries of children.”

Sunset couldn’t help but glare fire at the woman, but before things could go further, Scorpan cut in, rising from his seat. Eyes turned to him as the Captain Commander strode with even steps towards the front of the Zero Division. At the same time, Sombra mirrored Scorpan’s actions, rising and gliding forward on shadowed steps to stand beside his rival, enemy, and counterpart in front of the five seated before them. 

“I, too, do not wish to waste time,” said Scorpan with eyes of iron, and a voice of stone, “Glory. I have not seen your face in a long time. That goes for many of you, whom I believed to be occupied with the sacred duty of guarding the Soul Queen during her long recovery from my brother’s treacherous attack thousands of years ago. Yet... you must be aware that I have been presented with information that brings that presumption into question. Have you come here to defend yourselves, or to lay bare the truth?”

“Like this poor old soldier next to me, I wonder why you have come,” Sombra said with a tone far less reserved than Scorpan’s and significantly more drenched in barely contained fury and scorn, “Unlike him I have no interest in hearing your defense. Confession, perhaps. I’m more interested in what your true goals are, much like young Miss Applejack astutely demanded before you silenced her.”

“And for the record,” stated Discord, unmoved from his seat, but wound more tense than the world’s tightest spring, “I’m far more curious about what you’ve done with the Soul Queen than I am in hearing your reasons for it. Glory, that ability you’re using, you didn’t have it eight thousand years ago, I am willing to lay money on. Scorpan, you’d know, am I correct?”

Scorpan made a grunting noise like he’d been kicked in the sensitive spot of the knee, grimacing deeply so his wrinkled face of brown looked like ancient leather, “I want to hear it from Glory’s lips, Discord. I will not believe anyone capable of such... desecration without hearing it from them, personally.”

Despite the severity of what was being said, there was not a trace of unease or upset on Glory’s face. Bowtie was an unreadable mask, while Medley only showed a faint tick at the corner of her eye that could have meant anything, yet Sunset’s intuition told her the woman was... being very observant of everyone else’s reactions, as if waiting for something. Blossom didn’t smile, but he wore an intense look of naked desire and anguish, as if the man was remembering something both beautiful yet somehow horrifying. Minty openly laughed, spinning her parasol and leaning over to look sidelong at Glory with her lips curling up into a smirk.

“Well Glory, you want to answer the fellas, or should I do the honors? I mean, no point hiding it, right? That’s what we agreed on, right? Discord’s got it figured out, least some of it.”

“It’s my responsibility, so I shall do it, Minty,” Glory said, to which the seemingly younger girl sighed and shrugged, leaning back in her seat and pulling her legs up like she was enjoying a good show. 

Meanwhile Glory focused her attention upon the men in front of her, hand still calmly set upon her blade. There was a heavy waver in the air, and Sunset felt as if there was a winter breeze chilling the air, despite no change in the temperature. It was just Glory’s voice, it’s cold, uncompromising nature as she stated facts with the finality of falling stars.

“It is as you observe, Discord. I have absorbed the Soul Queen’s ability to instate her will upon her surroundings, granted by her Heart. You will note the others have absorbed their own portions. Minty, the Stomach, Blossom, the Hands, Bowtie, the Legs, and Medley the Right Eye. Save for the Left Eye, which Mother cast out before we contained her, all else we have not taken remains with Mother. She is not ‘recovering’. She is imprisoned. And will remain so until the end of the Zero Plan.”

Scorpan looked ready to either collapse, scream, or draw his blade and attack in that very second. His reiatsu flared into a coiling, drowning storm. Sombra was less rattled, but his wrath seemed no less boiling from the dark shadows sharpening his violent features and the way those shadows brimmed to life around his feet and crawled up his body or from his cape in sharp, grasping motions. Discord looked... satisfied, as if he’d known the answer all along, but was just having it confirmed. 

“What... sickening madness...?” Scorpan began, but Glory spoke again in that same, simple, cold and fact-stating tone.

“If you wish to know in full, then control yourself. Or do you mean to fight us here, now, within the confines of this human city?” Glory asked, “You know what would occur, were we to do battle in this realm. This city would not survive the first minute of our conflict. Indeed, the entire continent would be in danger, potentially the entire world if we unleashed our collective power in full. Do you intend to draw your weapons upon us then, Scorpan? Or you, pretender to our Father’s power?”

Scorpan’s face was twisted in both rage and pain, disbelief coiling around immense sadness. Then Sombra’s hand gripped his, and Scorpan realized he’d nearly drawn his Zanpaktou. Sombra’s fingers held his wrist tightly, yet his eyes were shockingly understanding as Scopan looked at them, the Quincy King’s face showing a soft sympathy that Scorpan had never seen directed at a Soul Reaper before.

“I know this pain, Captain Commander of the Gotei 13. This betrayal. This anguish of rage that one cannot afford to unleash. Do not let it take hold. We have been enemies, have sought each other’s lives, but today we are faced with a common foe. Let us hear what they have to say, before we decide how to enact vengeance upon them.”

“Hah! Vengeance he says, like he’s the one who’s been wronged,” Blossom said with a light chuckle, “Like he isn’t some human skin rag wearing our Father’s power like a cheap suit that doesn’t fit him! Man, you’re a master of bad comedy, Quincy ‘King’.”

“Scorpan,” Bowtie suddenly said, “I understand your fury, yet you should know the full extent of our actions, our reasons for them, and what the Zero Plan is before deciding where you should stand on this matter. Hear Glory’s words with blade sheathed, for she is correct, if this turns to battle... it will go poorly for you, and you know this.”

Sunset, listening to all of this, was more than a little riled up herself! If what was said so far was true, then Zero Division really had betrayed the Soul Queen, but had gone a step even further than that and stolen... parts of her!? Absorbed them into themselves? That sounded insane! Granted, just about everything so far had indicated that these five individuals were just a tad bonkers, but cannibalizing their own mother was about as horrifically mad as anything Sunset had heard, and her standards for that had gotten rather high over the past year of her life.

Her friends weren’t idle, either. Each of them had stood, and summoned forth their Fullbrings. It, perhaps, was a bit of an indication that despite that display, none of the Zero Division had even bothered giving the girls another look once Glory had silenced them. Yet that did work a bit to the girls’ advantage, as Fluttershy extended from the halo upon her back a weave of several dozen golden arms of light, which then Sunset felt connected to herself and the rest of her friends.

I’m going to break the Kido, Fluttershy’s voice spoke into Sunset’s... well, not her mind so much as her soul, given the nature of Fluttershy’s power. I just need to draw on power from all of you first, because this Kido is... um, rather immense.

Rainbow Dash smiled wickedly and gave a thumbs up, while Applejack slammed armor clad fists together. Pinkie Pie nodded enthusiastically while Pinkamena appeared from a dark pink tendril and licked salivating lips. Rarity nodded, arms crossed with imperial poise. Sunset raised her still sheathed Zanpaktou and let Fluttershy’s power freely seep into the blade, offering up her reiatsu.

Fluttershy drew in energy from all of her friends, and that collective pool of shared reiatsu burned upwards through her ethereal golden arms. These arms then gripped an up to that point invisible set of glass-like domes that surrounded them... and ripped into them like tearing at aluminum foil. There was a shredding sound and the screech of breaking crystal as the Kido flared with white kanji symbols, resisting Fluttershy’s potency for a few seconds. Glory’s eyes finally moved, shifting for the first time to actually look at the girls. The other Zero Division members did the same, Medley giving a microscopic nod of... approval?

With a calm, focused shout, Fluttershy drew hard on all of the girls’ combined reiatsu and hammered the Kido, this time with palm strikes, and finally the Kido broke fully, scattering to crystalline motes of energy.

“Fuwha!” Rainbow Dash belched, “Finally can talk gain! Hey, lady! Piss right the hell off with that ‘be silent’ crap!”

“Wowie, that was way not fun,” Pinkie said, and Pinkamena, still half formed out of her head, flipped Glory off, to which Pinkie said, “Mena, that’s not nice. Warranted, but not nice.”

“While I tend towards maintaining a sense of ladylike politeness, I agree with my friends in the sentiment that the lot of you can kiss the most pale part of my posterior,” Rarity stated, “No matter how powerful or old you are, it is not polite to simply silence others. Especially considering this conversation has as much to do with us as it does anyone else here.”

“W-well said, fair lady,” Blueblood said, struggling to get words out of his mouth, and visibly forcing himself to stay straight backed and not cringe away from the combined presence of the Zero Division, and to his credit succeeding sufficiently that he wasn’t quaking. Beside him, Moondancer was pale as old milk and looked ready to pass out, by comparison. 

There was a fascinated gleam in Blossom’s eyes, ignoring Blueblood and instead roving over the six girls beside Discord, as if drinking in Sunset and her friends. He didn’t overly linger on any singular one of them, but Sunset did note that he seemed focused more on Fluttershy and Rarity than anyone else as he said, “This is a pleasant surprise. Medley said you young ladies were worth watching, but I wasn’t inclined to believe it until just now. Breaking one of Glory’s Kido, even a basic one, is quite the deed.”

“Eeeh,” Minty floated upside down and around, pursing her lips, “It’s not that impressive. I mean, felt like it took all six of them to pull it off, and that golden chick’s power feels like it specializes in screwing with reishi. Hey, yellow girl, what’s it your weird arms do?”

“Nothing special,” Fluttershy replied with stillness in her voice, to which Minty’s hand slipped lower on her parasol. Sunset saw a hint of a black blade appearing, with the slightest wisp of brackish dark smoke, but then Glory’s voice rang out hard and clear.

“Minty, sheath your blade at once! I have not given anyone here leave to engage in barbarism.”

Minty turned a slow look towards Glory, to which the elder woman gave back a stare hard enough to crack a glacier. Slowly Minty relented, putting the small bit of blade she’d drawn from her parasol back and floated back down to sit in her chair with a bored and sour look. “Fine, whatever. This is getting to be a pain. If this takes much longer I’m going home to play.”

Glory paid the sulking Minty no further mind and briefly looked at Sunset and her friends, as if truly seeing them for the first time. Sunset’s skin tingled with the kind of uncomfortable, nervous twinge she got whenever she imagined Celestia chewing her out over abandoning Equestria. There was such ancient, measuring judgment in Glory’s eyes, endlessly blue, like being stuck falling through a cold sky without ground. 

“I commend the effort in breaking that Kido, but it is also a clear sign you six young women have become overly involved in this affair. The magic of the other world has given birth to a dangerous hybrid of energy that does not belong here, and it seems obvious to me you are all entirely too young and impulsive to possess such capabilities.”

“Is that your big takeaway?” Sunset asked, dumfounded, “You’re just bothered by us being strong? You don’t have anything to say for yourself about the war you’ve orchestrated, or the horrible place you created with Hell?”

“You fail to understand, as I might expect of one who’s only lived a tiny candle flicker of time compared to what I and my siblings have. Your name is...Sunset Shimmer?”

Sunset gave one, firm nod, not breaking eye contact with Glory, despite it feeling like the woman was drilling holes through her skull. “That’s right. And I assume you know I was originally from Equestria. I call Earth my home now, and short time here or not, I love this world and the people in it. I want to know why you’ve done what you have. What could possibly drive anyone to betray their own mother, engineer an endless, brutal war, and create a merciless prison for souls just for the purpose of grinding them down into energy? Because from my simple, short, ‘candle flicker’ of life’s perspective... you all seem batshit insane.”

“Oh my,” said Fluttershy, “I might have said ‘seemed a tad coo-coo’, perhaps?”

“Nah, Flutters, Sunset nailed it,” Rainbow Dash said, “Sometimes you just need that extra pop a good swear gives, you know?”

“Yeah,” agreed Pinkie Pie, “I mean ‘bat guano insane’ just doesn’t have the same punch.”

“I’m glad we can all focus on what’s important here,” Rarity sighed, “It really sets the tone for a standoff with five murderous, insane deities.”

“Heh, this comin’ from the gal that thirty seconds ago told ‘em all ta kiss yer shiny white behind?” egged Applejack with a half smile, to which Rarity held her head high.

“Words I stand by.”

“These are... the threats you were so concerned with?” Bowtie queried, glancing at Medley, who maintained an enigmatic air in her seat.

“They may act like simple teenagers, but you just saw what they did to Glory’s Kido. They deserve to be taken seriously.”

“Is that why you stole the geodes from us at Everfree?” Sunset asked, “Because you see us as a threat?”

“That’s one way to interpret it,” Medley replied, giving no hint in her voice as to just what she meant by that. “Taking down that Kido is impressive, but not really threatening. The six of you together are certainly dangerous, but as you are you still fall short of something that could take one of us head on. Those crystal baubles might have made you stronger, enough to warrant a more severe response than just leaving you to your own devices. You ought to thank me for taking them off your hands.”

“Ahem, excuse me?” said Twilight quite suddenly, having stayed rather quiet the entire time, as if trying very hard not to draw attention to herself. Now she gulped a bit at the Zero Division’s abrupt attention, but she firmed her back and spoke in a measured manner, “Hello. Twilight Sparkle, um, of the Sternritter. I’d just like to clarify something. What precisely is your knowledge of magic and Equestria? I’ve been bothered by this, because I’ve seen enough evidence to know that Equestria’s magic has seeped into this world well before the events at Canterlot High School. Gaia here is proof enough of that. Since the five of you are literally the oldest beings present, can you confirm to me just how far back our world’s connection to Equestria goes?”

“A curious question,” Glory said, giving Twilight a look as if a particularly loud and yapping dog had just run up at her, “But simple to answer. The world of Equestria has always been connected to ours through the Beast Realm, like a triumvirate of parallel existences. That realm’s energies seep into the Beast Realm, and in turn a trickle of that seeps into ours. Yet our world’s remain separate, and it has been the long standing way of things to keep that separation. Sunset Shimmer is an anomaly in that regard, although far from the only one that has occurred over the eons. Now, child, why your curiosity? We know you are Sombra’s pet being of magic. Your poor soul has been all but infected down to the core with that foreign power. Do you hope to find some grand revelation by probing what we know? I apologize, but none of us have sought to practice magic.”

“I see, but why? If magic makes spiritual powers stronger, wouldn’t it have made sense to study them? Tirek has been all but salivating at the chance to absorb magical power, as have other Espada,” Twilight said, “I can’t see the logic in why the Zero Division, or indeed any of the beings from your time, including the Soul Queen, wouldn’t have sought out magic.”

There was that prickling of cold along Sunset’s skin again, the invisible press of unseen power. Suddenly Twilight wasn’t sitting, but was standing directly in front of Glory, eyes wide and confused at the sudden shift. Glory stood, and Sombra stepped forward, but the woman held her hand up without looking at him, her eyes focused solely upon Twilight. 

“Touch her and you will answer to me,” Sombra promised, and Glory shook her head.

“I will not harm her. I merely wish to look at her more closely as I ask...” She loomed over Twilight, “Has magic brought you joy in your life, child? Or has it brought strife? Was there order in its explosive use, or chaos and pain to your soul? Magic is a great power, it is true. But it is an unstructured, dangerous power, that does not belong as a part of our world. I recognize it’s value to those who use it in their own realm, for that realm was made to support that power. I even respect that power, for how dangerous it can be to us. But ours is a world of order, and spirit. Our souls bloom in structure, and stifle under chaos. For all of Mother’s other faults, she saw this clearly and encouraged the realms to remain separate. If only she did more to enforce order and not let small wanderers slip through the cracks, or conflicts to be born where they should have been stifled. No, young Twilight Sparkle, I have not studied magic, only those who make use of it. It is only my compassion that has left me unwilling to end those such as yourself and your friends who use it, and that compassion has limits that are fast approaching.”

Without even a gesture, Twilight was sent back to her seat, like a quarrelsome student put back in detention, and Glory sat down, smoothing out her robes and haori with a deep breath. “Now then, enough interruptions. Those of you gathered her have all to one degree or another expressed the desire to know the truth, and our motivations, so be silent and I shall tell it all in full. There is nothing more to be gained in obfuscating the truth, so the truth you shall have.”

She gave a brief moment to ensure that all were now seated and quiet, like a teacher observing to ensure an unruly class had settled down. Scorpan still looked like rage constrained by the smallest of dams, while Sombra had moved protectively in front of Twilight with a dour glare. Sunset and her friends remained silent for the moment, Sunset admittedly very curious to have her questions answered. Discord looked most keen, while Ditzy stayed tense nearby alongside Gaia. Amore and Blueblood exchanged looks, both Captains too subdued to say or consider doing anything to interrupt, and their Lieutenants were in the same boat. Sugarcoat secretly held Twilight’s hand from under the table, comforting the other girl. Coloratura was more focused on Sombra, as if waiting for an unseen signal.

With no further voices raised, Glory nodded.

“For the sake of brevity I will keep this focused on the facts of the matter and not go into unnecessary detail. Much of this is going to go over the heads of those who lack the context, but Scorpan, you shall understand well enough, having lived through these times alongside us. It was more than eight thousand years ago that this world was in crisis. The Soul Queen’s children warred among themselves over petty disputes, but most predominantly there was the question of the soul’s innate disposition and the manner in which the cycle of reincarnation should be managed. Tirek was at the head of a faction of powerful souls that believed conflict and suffering bred strength and evolution of the soul’s powers, and supported by like minded, self styled gods of war, death, and destruction, pursued violence on those of us who valued order, law, structure, and peace. The fighting had seen to the deaths of countless of the Soul Queen’s children. Century by century, pantheons of gods fell to ruin, and fewer and fewer of us remained, the war continuing without compromise or retreat from either side. The physical realm of the living suffered terribly as well, with plague and calamities befalling many human cities during these times of strife. I saw firsthand the end of so many souls that even now I can still smell the blood and smoke, and remember the feeling of watching their essence shatter...”

Glory paused, for no dramatic effect, but just a simple moment of reflection. Sunset saw it on all of their faces, even Scorpan’s. These ancient beings were recalling a time of horror so vivid to their memories that it must have been like reliving it in surround sound. Not a one of the Zero Division looked happy or fond of these memories Glory conjured, even the seemingly violent Minty had a sour look like Pinkie Pie sometimes got on the very rare occasions the girl ate too many sweets, even by Pinkie standards.

“One by one the halls of the Soul Palace became an empty place of shades. When a being like us, who are closer to the Soul Queen in power, dies, we do not reincarnate like you human souls do. Our souls are too... potent. They break apart and scatter like slivers of diamond upon the soil of the world of the living. It is only then that the fragments of our souls are reborn into smaller pieces. Mortal shards. Humans who then die and scatter their souls a bit more, until they are like any other person. A single god’s soul might create tens of thousands of lesser mortal ones. And we bore witness to the deaths of hundreds of our kin in this manner. Until only a handful of us remained. Myself and my siblings are direct children of the Soul Queen and her Consort, while Tirek and Scorpan are second generation. There were a few others who were further removed, third or fourth generations, but not many. Most of us whom mortals would call ‘gods’ came from those generations of souls. Once one got to the fifth generation removed from the Soul Queen the dip in power was... notable. Less godly. More mortal, and susceptible to aging and sickness. Yet the war was not ended. Tirek wished to ensure his Hollows dominated the realms of the living and the dead. I, in good conscience, could not back down from this. The beginnings of a new society that could oversee the cycle of souls was necessary. Yet the Soul Queen would not end the conflict...”

Glory’s voice had held a great deal of self-discipline and smooth control up until then, but it started to grew more impassioned, and the unmistakable current of hot anger was there as she continued, “I pleaded endlessly with her to end it. She had the power to stop Tirek, remove the Hollows, and allow a new realm of peaceful structure to take root. All of us argued with Mother and Father to intervene. They would not. Mother only agreed to assemble meetings, not unlike this one we have right now, to ‘talk things over’. Not to enforce her rule, but to just have pointless talks in which none of Tirek’s forces would give ground, and neither would we, for what ground was there to give?”

“So far this is all as I remember it,” Scorpan said, “I fought in some of those battles. I argued with my own brother as often as crossed blades with him and his fellow war gods and Hollows. He would not cease, even as his allies fell one after another. He thought he could still win, and perhaps he could, for our own forces dwindled as fast as his did. And the world suffered for it. I also remember what comes next, at least in part. The Soul Queen did as you said, and arranged another talk with the Hollows, inviting Tirek and his warlords to meet with all of you at the Palace. I was there that day, guarding the great Gate of Heaven, as was my charge. I let my brother in, I saw him enter with his cronies to stride up the path to the Soul Palace. You... you entered last, told me to watch the Gate closely and be ready for betrayal. I thought you meant my brother. Were you warning me against yourself, Glory?”

She took his thunderous words of accusation like an ocean accepting the storm, and replied without a tremor on her ivory face, even if Sunset did note a hint of discomfort in her eyes. “You were told what was necessary. We knew you were a dutiful and loyal man, Scorpan. You would not have understood our actions at the time, and I had no desire to kill you. It was not out of the question Tirek would strike before we could, anyway, so the warning held purpose beyond priming you to view him as the culprit.”

“I was eager to believe that,” Scorpan confessed with a deep strain of bitter regret, “Too eager. Our differences had grown great by that point, and I had come to view him and his Hollows as lost souls in need of purification... at sword point, if need be. I was all too willing to go along with the lies you told of Tirek and his forces ‘betrayal’ at that meeting. I did not want to question how he and his warlords had the strength to slay the Consort and wound the Soul Queen, even with the element of surprise. Given you are openly admitting your hands are the ones stained in blood, I can only wonder how you defeated Her. Mighty as you are, the Soul Queen was above all of us, and her Consort nearly her equal.”

“A good question,” agreed Sombra, “Perhaps I should add in my own memories to this testimony? Long have I striven to piece together the fragments of the Consorts’ scattered recollections, and that fated day was quite vivid in his mind, even when fractured like a broken mirror.”

“Keep your half remembered ‘memories’ to yourself,” Glory told him, “Our Father may have sent his soul to be reborn relatively whole in a mortal body, but you are not He who sired us, and you have but a shadow of his grace about you. Be silent, shadow, lest light extinguish you. I was not intending to hide anything. This is what happened that day... the truth, as I lived it.”

----------

Long, long ago...

“I sense Tirek has already arrived.”

Glory’s statement was given as she stepped from the tall pillar of gold that stood at the edge of a wide, flat bridge of red wood. The bridge was flanked by glorious pillars of white stone and led to a set of gold and white gates, flat and solid as towering doors brushed with cloud. Endless sky and a sea of white clouds extended on either side of the gates, which were connected to nothing, yet Glory knew the Gate of Heaven was the first major physical projection of the ward that guarded the Soul Palace. To an outside observer, they’d seen nothing beyond those tall, immaculate doors, just more sky and clouds. 

Scorpan stood at the gate, alert and tall with his young but strong face cast in a worried glower. He wore the black robes that Glory had started to mark as the symbol of her faction of the war. Shinigami, Bowtie preferred to call them, although Glory wasn’t certain about the name herself. She had tried to coin ‘Balancers’ instead, but Shinigami, or Soul Reaper, was sticking among the lower ranked.

It would do. For the sake of the plan, any name would suit. 

“He has,” Scorpan said, looking back at the gates, “Him, Ravana, Cerberus, Lavan, and Typhon.”

Glory gave a miniscule nod, “Almost all of his inner circle. Gaia is absent?”

“Thank our Queen’s grace, Gaia does not want any further part in this. One of the only Hollows I’ve seen with sense, although she does not speak with me any longer,” Scorpan said, not masking his regret over the fact that what small friendship he might have once had with among the more reasonable of Tirek’s faction was largely gone after a brutal, long war. 

While Tirek had not brought as many of his warlords as Glory would have anticipated, it was enough for her purposes. She approached the Gate of Heaven, and it opened for her without Scorpan having to go through the process of unlocking the wards. Mother knew she was coming, and likely willed the Gate open on her own. It hurt Glory, Mother’s unrelenting trust. If only she’d listen when Glory kept telling her to intervene in this war. Now, she had to take action herself.  

Passing Scorpan she paused and laid a hand upon his shoulder, “Be ready, in case of betrayal.”

“Glory?”

“I have a bad feeling about this meeting. Remain here and stay watchful, in case of outside attack, but I do not trust Tirek.”

“Nor do I. My brother has lost his way, and is hungry enough for power I could almost see him being mad enough to strike within the Queen’s very home but... no, even he wouldn’t...” Scorpan shook his head, “I shall be watchful. Please be careful, all of you. The others wait at the foot of the Palace.”

All according to plan, then, thus far. She gave Scorpan a small smile and then proceeded past him. When the Gate closed behind her, only then did she allow herself a brief sigh, almost wanting to apologize to Scorpan, but... no, she was resolute in her goal. There was no point in apologies. No point in regret. What had to be, had to be

Beyond the Gate the true Soul Palace was in view in all it’s expansive glory and heavenly splendor. Red walls gilded in gold stretched as far as mortal eyes could see in a great curving circle. Land dotted the clouds, filled with the beauty of immaculate gardens and primordial forest alike. The shining walls of greater tiers of a pagoda-style palace defying the size of mountains rose from the sea of clouds, bridges of glorious crimson spanning across endless palace wings that filled the sky with countless towers. 

Glory loved this place, her home. And she despised to the core of her soul how empty it had become. Once the raucous voices of hundreds of her siblings, cousins, even children, filled this place. Gods born of the Queen and the Consort, filling these halls with the boisterous laughter and even friendly conflict of family.

Gone, one by one, now. No more laughter, and the conflicts had turned to hate and blood scattered across the lower realms, with that dirt ball of a mud planet the grave of too many of her family to count. Now infested with millions of mortals. Humans who were just fragmented shades of those whom Glory had loved.

The mind numbing silence of the Soul Palace assaulted her soul as she walked further down the long red bridge towards it’s entry stairs, the vast climb of immense stairs that bypassed the numerous Halls of the Soul Palace to reach it’s true summit. She still could not comprehend why Mother and Father had allowed it all to happen. Why even now they insisted on doing nothing but arrange meetings and encourage ‘talks’, as if it was even possible to resolve this dispute with talking any longer.

Tirek and  his Hollows had to be expunged. What was wrong had to be put to right, by any means necessary, and thankfully Glory was not alone in her thinking.

“They’re waiting for us up above, sister,” said Medley first, standing between their fellows, Minty, Bowtie, and Blossom. Medley approached Glory, meeting her halfway down the bridge, and lowered her voice.

“If you intend to back out of this, now is the time.”

Glory looked at Medley and didn’t break stride, “There is no turning back. Have you lost your nerve?”

“No. It’s you I worry about. This won’t be as easy as you think, Glory.”

“I am well aware of how powerful Mother and Father are,” she stated defensively, and Medley’s jaw tightened.

“Not what I meant. But never mind, I can see there’s no getting this across to you. I’m with you. We all are.”

“Indeed,” said Bowtie as the five of them met at the bottom of the first of thousands of steps that led upward onto the monolithic walls of the Palace. “Each of us is resolved to correct our world’s wayward course, and restore what we have all lost. Any sacrifice made in the process is beyond justified.”

“Far too much ugliness in the way the world is now for me to even dream of something more beautiful,” Blossom stated with a sad shake of his head, “So I suppose it’s only fair we indulge in some ugliness ourselves. Destruction before creation and all that.”

“You all are way too glum about this!” Minty said, pumping a fist in the air, “Gotta psych yourselves up! Kick Mom and Dad’s ass, we can do it! Unscrew the world, we can do it! Murder anyone who disagrees with us, we can do it!”

“And there goes any sense of gravitas to what we’re about to do,” Medley said with a soft chuckle, “Minty, please, try not to talk until this is over and done with?”

“Enough,” Glory said, “It’s time.”

Her words cut off further chatter, and the five of them as one ascended the steps. Distance and time fluctuated up that seemingly miles high flight of stairs, passing by tier after tier of Palace walls and corridors. For them it was just a perception of seconds to reach the summit. Below the extensive horizon of clouds went on forever, while just in front of them was the short red wall and much smaller, almost humble gate into the courtyard of the Soul Queen’s abode. The gate stood open, welcoming, and beyond was a great pavilion of polished stone, and a simple garden with a immaculate crystal spring of water. A set of cherry blossom trees grew along a winding grass trail to the right of the gate, while the stone walkway led across to a plain open space in front of a two story, wide building of red wood and white stone. 

In front of this building was a comfortable set of red cushion seats arranged in a semi circle in front of the short stairs leading to the building’s gold gilded front doors.

Tirek was already there, colossal  and crimson, surly and challenging as he glared at Glory and her compatriots. A well trimmed, black mustache filled out his upper lip, and curled with his proud smile.

“Hah, took you long enough! Intending to keep us waiting forever, Glory!? Hmph, and Bowtie, are you hiding the scar I gave you from our last bout?”

“I don’t hide my scars, Tirek. I simply don’t care about them,” stated Bowtie, while Medley gave the mighty Arrancar a wink and sharply blown kiss.

“Bowtie is just mad he can’t pull off the same facial hair you do. Maybe next time I’ll join him in taking you on and see if we can’t capture the great Tirek for some personal fun.”

Tirek rolled his eyes and rubbed at his mustache, “Perhaps I ought to shave it, if it’s such a distraction for you.”

  Glory ignored the inane banter and eyed the others seated around Tirek.

There was an immense male Arrancar almost taller than Tirek himself, and a rather primeval example of the Hollow race, with three heads sprouting from his wide shoulders, each as squat and ugly as a bulldog and sporting canine half skull masks. He wore a thick chain of bone around his body that wrapped his arms, Cerberus’ blades dangling from his wrists in the shape of thick meat hooks. He spoke not at all, besides a low growl issuing forth from one of his heads, giving Glory and her group a snarling glare from his six blood red eyes. Bone spikes protruded in circles around his three necks, and his Hollow ‘hole’ was actually three, arranged in his lower stomach, a sign of his rather unique nature of a mutation among Hollows who had once been three brothers who in their mutual bloodlust merged together into one. 

On Tirek’s left sat he who was the weakest of Tirek’s inner circle warlords, but incredibly dangerous in his own right due to his tactical acumen that had outmaneuvered many a foe on the battlefield. He was a broad bellied Arrancar with a Hollow hole in the center of his stomach. His bright orange skin gave off a continuous, steaming heat. Wide arms were decorated in rings of gold, and a crest of bone rose from a bald head and flat brick of a face that held burning, judgmental yellow eyes. A great bladed hunk of molten metal was stabbed into the ground next to him, pulsing with inner volcanic power. From his grousing look, Lavan was not at all happy to be present during this meeting. Or perhaps it was just the jostling of the six armed giant next to him that was annoying him.

“Geheheh, relax, Lavan, before you pop a vein. You didn’t even need to come.”

“As if I’d trust you with keeping an eye out for Shinigami trickery,” Lavan shot back, casting a burning glare at the one who had spoken.

This Arrancar had a skin tone of a darker red than Tirek’s, more akin to a maroon, almost purple, and his body was covered in scarring and sharp dark tattoos. Six arms of bulk laden muscle rippled from his tree trunk body, and a wild mane of black hair fell down around a head of handsome features sporting burning red eyes. Ravana wore little other than a loincloth of elegant black silk, and on his back carried a massive black, curved blade nearly as large as his body, yet oddly next to it was also strapped a polished instrument of dark wood and strings that had one large wood chamber at the bottom and a second, small chamber higher up the neck of strings. The man’s jawline was covered in bone, and a Hollow hole was set right in the center of his chest, where he wore a large necklace of many colored beads.  

“I prefer Lavan’s insights to your bluster, Ravana,” Tirek said with an almost friendly grin, “He can see through much that would never occur to a straightforward warrior like you, although if it comes to it I don’t doubt your blade arms will be of great use.”

“As if there is much here to see through,” said the fifth of the present Arrancar, a figure of pale white, his skin flecked with scales and his features obscured by a serpentine mask of bone. What half of his face could be seen was long and ghostly, with sunken gray eyes. He wore wrappings of white shrouds around his chest, and an interlocking set of thick, pale snake skins around his waist. Amid those waist wrappings were a pair of large, curved knives that bore jagged, fang-like protrusions as if they were carved from the jaws of a reptilian beast. Typhon looked at Glory and her comrades with unhidden disgust and hate, “These people have nothing to say worth hearing or seeing through. We waste our time, Tirek.”

“Most likely,” Tirek admitted, and his eyes found Glory with a blaze of amusement, “But I don’t mind listening to them bluster. It costs us nothing, and the war has entered a bit of a lull for now.”

Glory kept her face as carefully schooled to calm as she could, not wishing to give the slightest hint of what she truly intended to do this day. In some ways Tirek was being more cordial than she expected, but that was likely because he knew the lull in the war would not last long, and he felt confident in the power of his remaining forces, even though Glory knew his side had taken as many losses as hers. Strictly speaking, Glory had the edge in power over Tirek, but he was a beast among his kind, stronger even than some of his predecessors who had shared his ideals but not quite become Hollows, such as Set or Ares. Entire pantheons of what mortals considered ‘gods’ had been slain in the fighting, to the point where those seated beside Tirek were the strongest of who was left. Ravana and Typhon were roughly Tirek’s equals, but had no ambition to rule as he did. Cerberus and Lavan were weaker, but no less vicious in their own ways, and still too dangerous to discount. And Tirek had many other followers who were not far behind in power, too many left for Glory to feel comfortable taking them in a final, open battle. Even if victory was secured, the cost would be too high. It had already become too high. This mad gamble of hers was the only path she could see to break that paradigm and rebalance the scales. 

“Because so many of us have fallen on both sides already,” Glory stated simply in response to Tirek’s words as she went to take her place at the cushion on his right, where further on to her right the other Shinigami of her group took their own places. “Much of our fighting is now done by lesser souls. Your ‘Hollows’, and my ‘Shinigami’, and it has gotten to the point where as many get reincarnated as die between each lull in our conflict. Can you not see the futility of it all?”

“What I see, Glory, is that with every battle you fight, you only prove me more correct. Conflict is in the nature of the soul. It is unavoidable. You call us Hollow, and I accept that moniker with pride, but the truth is that we’re just the natural next step. You and your Shinigami just refuse to accept it.”

Minty stuck her tongue out at him, “Pfft, you’d just turn every world into a boring death march where the only food is souls and the only entertainment is cutting each other up! I like a good fight, but just as the seasoning on more fun stuff like feasts with actual food and drink! Even if Glory is a bit too stuffy for my tastes, she’s still a million times better than letting you Hollow dullards run the show. Least she lets me have fun.”

“I’m all for fun, little Minty,” laughed Ravana, crimson eyes sparkling, “But if you let souls get soft from all that hedonism, then who’s going to be left that’s even worth fighting? Battle isn’t just for settling disputes. It’s a way of life! The way of life. Nobody is really alive until they’ve proven it with blood and strife. Doesn’t mean you can’t like the person you’re killing. Best friends make for the best foes, too.”

“As backwards a way of thinking as I’ve ever heard,” stated Bowtie, “A mindless animal has more sense in its skull than you, Ravana.”

“Then feel free to come over here and try to crack it open,” Ravana taunted, gesturing with a few of his hands at Bowtie in both a beckoning and rude, one-fingered manner, while another hand already reached for the sword on his back. 

The door to the tall, immaculate home swung open silently and a rich male voice of a deep and scolding baritone came forth, “There will be no violence in these halls.”

The man who strode out wore an elegant but simply cut white tunic that went down to his waist, where a similarly clean white set of trousers covered his legs up until a lattice of leather corded sandals took over. A long cape went down his back, spun from gold and silver, the silver forming a star-shaped cross upon it. This symbol was partially hidden by the man’s rivers of night black hair that swept from a face of a similar dark tone, more a light charcoal that complemented strong, masculine features. Red eyes regarded those seated before the home of the Soul Queen cooly, the man crossing his arms over a proud chest. From his side hung a blade sheathed in a black scabbard, the weapon itself an immense broadsword with a cross shaped hilt of silver. 

“You were invited here to speak and seek to settle your disputes. I understand this will involve a great deal of shouting and accusation, but none of you are to draw blades in this holy place. Am I clear?”

The words were spoken in the steel tone of a father handing down the law to his children, for that was entirely what was happening. 

“Yes, Father,” Glory said, lowering her head, and all others present did the same, even prideful Tirek. All called the Consort Father, just as all called the Soul Queen Mother, for those terms were ones of both respect and on some level, the perceived truth of the matter. Glory may have been a first generation child, born directly from the Soul Queen, but those such as Tirek still viewed the Consort and Her as parental figures. That was just the way of things. 

And she was intending to end that, today. She silently hoped none of her intentions were betrayed on her face. Father was a perceptive creature. His red eyes could pierce through nearly anything. He looked at them now with distant, stern features, that held a ray of concern and love for his children, but this was overshadowed by frustration and disapproval. She could readily feel that radiating off of him like a harsh wave. 

Suddenly a voice all too familiar, all too kind, all too... encompassing in its loving compassion spoke from the doorway, “Really my love, no need to give them such a glowering look. Our children are passionate people, and I wish them to speak their minds.”

She emerged into the light carrying a golden tray piled with freshly baked cakes smeared with honey. The smell was divine, and even made Glory hungry, and horribly sent her mind reeling to distant childhood memories of eating many sweets baked by her Mother’s hand. Her heart near tore in half, but she resolved herself to what was to be done as she watched the Soul Queen walked out next to her husband and cast a happy look over her gathered children.

In some ways, she defied conventional attempts at description, while at the same time managing to appear almost humble and mundane. Her hair was stark white, but if it caught any light, be it natural sunrays or flickering candle flame, and turned it into a prismatic display of countless colors. Her hair shimmered with those unseen colors, yet still somehow stayed as a cascading waterfall of unaltered, bleached white that struck the ground and trailed behind her like a gown. Her skin was like her husband’s, dark, but not like charcoal, but the shimmering deep blue and black of the sky at the threshold of dusk or dawn. Motherly, warm features curled her face into an eternal smile, with eyes wide and silver as the moon. She was remarkably tall, with long legs, broad hips, yet there was a plumpness to her middle that was somehow welcoming. She wore a pearl colored toga that swayed like mist around her, trailing to feet that wore simple, red wood sandals. No other adornments graced her, and she carried no visible weapon.

Not that the Soul Queen needed weapons. Her will, her uncompromising and towering reiatsu, and the ability to manifest it physically into what shape she wished was her power. Reishi danced to her whim in a way the particles of spirit energy did for no other being. 

The tray of cakes she carried was something she could have just wished into existence, although Glory knew that Mother preferred to bake the normal, mundane way. 

“My heart,” the Consort said, turning to the Soul Queen and wrapping an arm around her shoulders in a cuddle. She laughed and gave him a warm kiss.

“Now, now, not in front of the children. Keep watch as I know you feel you must, but please, they need to feel free to speak. Now then,” she turned to them all and walked down the steps with a merry gait, “Who wants snacks?”

The dour silence that followed was almost broken by Minty, but Glory gave the salivating younger woman a stern warning look and Minty relented. The Soul Queen looked at them with a bit of disappointment and carefully set the tray down, “Well, they’re here if anyone changes their mind. I know that things have been difficult for all of you, so perhaps you don’t have a great appetite at the moment. So instead I’ll hear what you have to say to each other. Are any of you prepared to stop fighting yet?”

It was as appalling as ever to Glory the utter casualness of the Soul Queen’s words. As if this was some... some backyard squabble! As if she hadn’t, dozens of times, argued with her over the very notion of this long and taxing war needing to end! While she seethed, Tirek spoke.

“I am prepared to cease the war immediately, if Glory and her faction agree to halt any and all attempts to ‘purify’ my people with their contemptible blades.”

“Do not lie to me or Mother,” Glory said, “You would continue to convert mortal souls into Hollows as much as possible were we not there to act as a bulwark against you. Any ceasefire would benefit you Hollows and gradually erode the number of pure souls left in the realms.”

His smug smirk made her blood boil, “Does that not simply prove me correct, then? That Hollows are the natural progression of the soul, and your imposed ‘order’ is nothing more than a sham that requires constant effort to enforce? Meanwhile human souls naturally turn Hollow, without I or my forces having to lift a finger?”

It was the same old circular argument. Glory could go on with it for eternity. She felt as if she already had.

No more. 

“Mother, I come here today to beseech you one last time. Please... please do something,” Glory said, shocked at bit at the moisture in her eyes that she couldn’t quite keep at bay, “I’m begging you. Tirek and the Hollows cannot be allowed to continue as they are. We cannot be allowed to continue as we are. As long as there is no singular order to the realms, conflict will arise again. More of your children will shatter into pieces and become nothing more than human motes, billowing on winds of unending strife. You have the power to stop it! You could even bring back those we have lost, if you but gather the pieces-”

“I cannot.”

Glory choked back her words as the Soul Queen spoke. It was a voice burdened with sadness, but also overflowing with quiet compassion and resolve as the Soul Queen looked at Glory with loving but troubled eyes. 

“Why?” Glory asked.

“What you are asking me to do is to remove the one thing I truly love about each and every one of you, my beloved offspring; your free will. I understand you cannot abide the beliefs and ways of the Hollows. I also understand that Tirek and his followers cannot abide the order your Shinigami seek to impose. I know that fighting between you, as has been the case in the past for many other of my children, is simply a natural occurrence that you must work out for yourselves.”

“Even if it has cost us so many loved ones we can never see again?” Glory whispered, “Reincarnation only works for the fragments, the small, mortal soul. We who are your truest children, we die in truth, Mother. We have been dying, broken apart, and you’ll not see those who are lost again unless you use your power to restore them!”

“If I did that, it would cost thousands of innocent mortal souls their own lives, Glory. I will not rob so many individual wills of their freedom to restore those who have passed on of their own equally free will,” the Soul Queen said, pain running like a stream through her tone, but no less resolute, “Freedom to choose one’s path is the greatest gift I know of, and I will not rob it from a single child, be they born directly from my womb or from generations hence from my line. I could never forgive myself if I became the kind of mother who would steal her children's’ freedom. I grieve for every death, Glory. I’ve cried unending tears, many endless nights, for those who have passed. I want nothing more than for your fights to end, but it is you who must end it. All of you. I cannot force it. I will not force it.”

“...What good is it then?” Glory found herself asking without being able to contain the scathing anger bubbling up from within her chest, “Your power. What good is it then if you won’t use it when your children are dying!?” 

The Soul Queen’s eyes were as soft as moonlight and filled with love, but also a long suffering patience that enraged Glory. “What good would my power be if I abused it to steal my children’s right to discover their own paths? It is true, Glory, if it was my wish I could have silenced this conflict between my children on the very first day. The moment I watched a child of mine slay another, and had to watch their soul shatter into pieces, I could have put an end to it all. Locked you all away. Forbade you from ever making a choice I didn’t approve of. Indeed I did react like that, at first. Until I discovered the realm of Earth, of the ‘living’. Such a strange pair of words, ‘living’ and ‘death’. I had to invent them just to differentiate between my children who remained on this side, and my children who were born again in those smaller, human forms.”

“Not born again, Mother, scattered! Broken! One of our souls makes hundreds, even thousands of theirs! There’s no coming back from that, and I’ve witnessed it too many times!” Glory shouted, but again the Soul Queen looked at her with a sad shake of her head.

“I know, my Glory, I know. It hurt me too, for a long time, and that was my failing, because it took me too long to come to terms with the existence of death to properly teach my children not to fear it. But you must understand, all of you, that your souls are meant to be reborn into those many pieces. Each and every one of those ‘small’ souls is a unique one, yet is imprinted with the beautiful spark of the grand and godly soul they were born from. I do not know why this is, for I’ve never been all knowing. I merely have come to understand that this existence we find ourselves in has its own natural current, and we are all to grow and experience it through our own choices, and yes even the violent clash of our beliefs. That is why I will never take away your ability to choose, Glory. Nor yours, Tirek. Or any of you, whom I all love so much, be you bloodthirsty or saintly, hedonist of erudite, pacifist or warrior... I love you all.”

A dark hand fell on the Soul Queen’s shoulders and she looked to the Consort’s own approving and loving gaze as he held her. The rest gathered were silent, save for Tirek who looked away with a rare expression of consternation and embarrassment.

“Hmph, no offense Mother, but this is why I don’t often come here. How am I to maintain my image as an all powerful conqueror when you say such utterly sappy things? I’m going to need to bathe in the blood of at least a hundred foolish challengers to get myself sorted again.”

The Soul Queen smiled at him without judgment, “You’ve always loved battles and power, little Tirek. Your father always worried, but I kept telling him that you have to be who you are. While I wish you’d make some peace with Glory, I know your nature drives you to conflict. I only hope that when you get the truly final battle you desire, you find peace within it.”

He groused unintelligibly even more, not willing to meet her serene gaze. 

Glory, however, stood. Her shoulders shook slightly with silent tears she refused to shed.

“So that is it, then. I tried. Now, at least, I know I have no choice. I can live with that.”

There was a distinct change in the air, and the Consort sensed it before anyone else, moving a step in front of the Soul Queen with his hand halfway to his blade, “I do not like the tone you take, Glory.”

“Geeze, are we finally done talking?” Minty said, also standing, as did the others alongside Glory, “We doing this now?”

“Looks that way, Mints,” said Blossom, stretching his arms, a melancholic smile on his face, “As some of the mortal bards are fond of saying; it’s showtime.”

Despite the Consort’s concern, the Soul Queen simply looked confused, tilting her head in a curious manner. And in fairness to her, Tirek did not see the danger inherent in Glory’s stance either, and in his own moment of flustered weakness after the Soul Queen’s loving and emotional speech, was taken just as off guard as she was.

Glory drew her sword. A blade of curved, streaming light emerged from its pearl scabbard. Her words were drained of emotion save for hardened, deathly resolution.

“Do it... Eos.”

The strike came from behind, within the very doors of the Soul Queen’s home. 

A blade of immense golden power and sunfire stabbed right through the Soul Queen’s unsuspecting back with such catastrophic force and power that the resulting shock of sun gold light knocked almost everyone besides Glorys’ group backwards due to lack of time to brace. The walls were cracked and the air let out a thunderous peal of sound from that singular blow, and the Soul Queen looked down at her chest with uncomprehending eyes at the blade sticking from within her. Sunfire, its heat radiant, dripped down and burned the ground, along with trickles of a luminous blood that glowed with the Soul Queen’s reishi.

“...Huh...” the Soul Queen uttered, and complete chaos exploded in the pavilion.

Glory did not see it all, yet she sensed it.

Bowtie went right for Tirek, as planned. The man drew his Zanpaktou and from the dark iron scimitar blade of clockwork a mountain of steel burst forth that smashed into Tirek with all of the concussive force of being smashed into by a falling mountain. A storm of steel blades lager than any real life tornado screamed in a metal barrage as Bowtie’s sword sparked off of Tirek’s, who had just barely drawn his own golden claymore in time. Bowtie in turn redoubled the titanic size of the metal monoliths that sprung from every swing of his sword, bearing down mountains upon first Tirek, and then Ravana, who had by that point stood and stretched his own six arms and drawn both the blade and instrument from his back. Ravana cradled the instrument in his lower two arms, fingers already dancing across the strings as his upper four arms began to move in a hypnotic haze of motion. The single, humongous curved tulwar style blade was immediately duplicated in the palms of his free hands, until he wielded four in a dark storm of motion that sliced into the monoliths of metal conjured by Bowtie. Tirek also responded in kind to Bowtie's assault by slicing the air with his blade and generating a blast of such unrelenting force that even without seeing it Glory could feel all of the Palace groan and buckle under the blows. Against either one of those opponents Bowtie would find a match, but pitted against both Glory knew that even her brother, the most martially skilled of her siblings, could only last for so long.

Minty’s task was to occupy Typhon, and a cascade of black smoke and oil flooded the grounds and swept him up as Minty gleefully giggled, her disastrous obsidian blade flying from her playful parasol as Typhon and her surfed down the immense Soul Palace, the smoke and oil melting walls to putty as it went. The howls of a thousand beasts accompanied Typhon's retaliation as a geyser of flesh tore from his back, formed from countless serpent heads, all of which belched forth vomitous Ceros that cut into Minty's tide of melting black.

Fire surged forth from Blossom’s blade, which swiftly transmuted into a sharpened horn of red metal that he put to his lips and hammered the world with an explosive sound that created a series of rupturing detonations of reishi that ripped half of the pavilion apart and sent Cerberus and Lavan both tumbling back. Both Arrancar recovered and drew their weapons, and in a fraction of a second an entire wing of the Palace just below was being ripped to pieces by a high speed clash of sound and fury from the three combatants. Given Cerberus and Lavan were the weaker of the gathered forces of Tirek, it was hoped Blossom could keep them busy by himself.

This left Medley with the hardest job of all.

Her face was frightening in its focus as her own sword came forth, grasping the redwood hilt that appeared from thin air and into her hand. The blade of wind force that extended from the hilt cut right towards the Consort, and in a concussive flash his own sword was there to meet it with such impact that it sheared through Medley’s sword and into her-

A whisper of wind and waver of force and that Medley vanished, the Consort turning to feel the impact of Medley’s real body in a tackle that smashed him with sound shattering force through the wall of his house. The home had a hole blasted clean through it by the Consort’s flying body, and Medley vanished in less than a millisecond, following him through it with her sword generating a legion of... not illusions, but rather alternate memories of herself that had as much physicality as her real body. They swarmed the Consort in a flurry, as his own power spilled forth in an oceanic tide of space warping shadow that was filled with his pure fury.

Glory knew Medley would not keep their Father occupied for long. Everything had to be done swiftly. Not even half a second had passed from the beginning, and she was already moving the same time her compatriots had.

Her Zanpaktou was a crescent of the very essence of light itself, and she poured all of her reiatsu, a heavenly sky’s worth of spiritual pressure, into the single thrust beyond the speed of light that was aimed true at her Mother’s heart. 

Glory never really knew if the Soul Queen was unable to defend herself because of the horrible wound she’d already received and her own shock, or if in that final moment she’d simply chosen not to. Glory didn’t see her Mother move to protect herself, either way, and felt the almost anti-climatic smoothness of her sword passing into the Soul Queen’s body and finding the beating heart within.

Now two blades pierced the very First Soul, the giant blade of golden metal and sunfire from behind, and the thin curved blade of most pure and raw light from the front. 

Within the Soul Queen, Glory felt her Mother’s reaitsu struggling like a caged star against bands of power coursing through its wounded core. Power that was not spiritual pressure, but magic. Magic from a foreign world, that even the Soul Queen would not have an easy time countering. Perhaps if she had seen the attack coming and could have hardened her nearly almighty reiatsu against it, then even this blade of titanic magical might would have not pierced fully, but the wielder of this sword was no mere mortal. Indeed the wielder was one whom Glory knew was an equal to herself.

“She struggles mightily,” said the ringing and imperious feminine tone as a being strode out of the doorway, wings of sunfire flaring over a body of of white sunfire clad in armor of blinding, molten gold. The winged equine’s mane was a raw corona of white flame, and her eyes pools of light that dimmed only a little to show gold orbs looking at the Soul Queen in hard concentration, “I suggest you remove her heart quickly, for even my magic will not hold this one for very long.”

“I know, Eos. Just hold her. This... will only take a moment.”

"Hmph, only a moment she says," scoffed Eos, strain writ plain on her flaming features, "You'd best keep your end of our bargain, for this is much more difficult than I am making it look."

Glory ignored the alicorn and kept her attention on the Soul Queen. Her Mother’s eyes looked into hers with shock that was fast softening into... emotions that Glory refused to acknowledge. She instead put all of her focus on searing her reiatsu into her Mother’s core. Without Eos’ help, without her magic, this would have been impossible. Glory had considered this from all angles countless times before enacting the plan. Even together, she and all four of her allies could not have guaranteed being able to subdue their Mother. More importantly, keeping the Consort and Tirek’s forces busy would mean only one of them could truly strike at Mother without her having time to retaliate. Glory by herself would never have been enough, and no other in all the world would have been able to help her do this feat of matricide.

No one of this world.

It had taken a long time to secure Eos’ help. Decades of slow diplomacy behind the scenes, aided by an ally in the Beast Realm to facilitate the meetings. Ultimately Eos’ own desperation due to her own conflict with her sister had finally put the alicorn in enough of a bind to accept the deal Glory was offering. A bargain was struck, and then it was just a matter of waiting for the right time.

Getting Eos into the Soul Palace was easy for Glory, who had access to all of the wards, and knew all of the hidden places as thoroughly as anyone save perhaps her Father, and even he did not always check every nook and cranny. More importantly, through many trials, and Medley’s help specifically in the area of stealth, Eos’ magic was proven to be able to subtly avoid the detection methods of normal reiatsu. Normal spells may not have been enough, but Eos was as powerful as alicorn’s got, and had mastery of magic almost none in her world save her sister possessed. So creating a spell to hide herself, tested thoroughly by Medley and Glory both, had been well within Eos’ power. 

Eos had been hidden in the Soul Palace a full day before the meeting, just waiting for Glory’s arrival so she could follow them right into the thick of the meeting. Then it was almost simple, hidden with her magic, to get into position and wait Glory’s signal to attack with the sole purpose of wounding the Soul Queen badly enough to disable her and using as much magic as needed to subdue, or at least weaken, her spiritual pressure enough for Glory to finish the job.

And finish it she was, for she felt the bands of light, on the smallest level of basic particles, slipping around her Mother’s heart. Her blade pierced the heart even as it gripped it on every single molecular level with strands of light until the organ was bound to the sword itself. Glory hardened all of her power within her arms, her sword, and her own soul as she prepared herself to yank the blade free and with it, her Mother’s heart... and paused only for a moment as she felt her Mother’s hand.

The Soul Queen had raised her right hand, slick with her own blood from having clutched at her wound a moment earlier. Now it touched her daughter’s face, but rather than attack, or struggle to unleash her power past the bonds of magic being forced into her by Eos, the Soul Queen simply held Glory’s head gently, like she was rocking her to sleep when she’d been small.

Glory looked into her Mother’s eyes and saw nothing but love and forgiveness there, and it killed her soul to see.

“I... love you...”

The Soul Queen’s words echoed in Glory’s ears as she felt tears on her face for only the second it took for the raw heat of her reiatsu to burn them away. “I love you too, Mother... goodbye.”

She screamed as she tore her sword out, and with it, amid a gout of blood, came the Heart of the Soul Queen.

----------

Nothing could pierce the black hole of silence that had fallen over the meeting area under Discord’s shop. 

Scorpan looked stricken and ill, mouth hanging slightly open in corpse-like disbelief. 

Sombra was a jet black statue, eyes as unreadable as chipped rubies. 

For Discord there was nothing save the phantom glint of suspicions confirmed. 

Most others were silent, stricken dumb or mesmerized in horror by the tale that Glory had recounted for them.

Of all of them, it was Sunset Shimmer who managed to speak first, to collect her thoughts and feelings enough to muster a voice amid that deathly quiet. 

“I’ll... not ask about this Eos individual, because that sounds like a whole other conversation waiting to melt my brain. So instead I’ll focus on what I don’t understand. Is the Soul Queen dead?”

“Not in truth,” Glory replied, voice desiccated of much of her earlier pride and now just stating facts, “Tearing out her Heart removed the core of her power, but Eos still had to keep her bound while I absorbed it, and then went to the aid of my fellow Zero Division members. The battle was not a short one. Cerberus and Typhon were slain, but Tirek escaped with the remainder for future struggles. However with everyone together we could turn to helping Medley deal with our Father, who rather than let his power be captured, sent it in a burst of strength to the realm of the living even as our blades pierced him. Then, unfortunately, our Mother regained enough power to do something similar, tearing out one of her Eyes to send away before we could regroup to finish the job. We took her power then, carving it up. But Mother cannot truly die like we can, so she remains, barely alive, and sealed within the Soul Palace.”

“But then... why did you create Hell? I still don’t quite understand this,” Sunset said, and no others rose to speak, but she could tell she had the attention of all, “You wanted to beat the Hollows, and it sounds like with the Soul Queens, ugh, ‘pieces’, you got even more powerful. I mean, Tirek was on your level back then, but you’re stronger than he is now, at least a little. You could have ended the war, but you kept it going instead! According to your story you hated that eternal war, so why would you make it continue on via the Soul Society and later on the Quincy?”

“For the Zero Plan,” Glory said simply, “What you don’t grasp, child, is that while I had held a small hope that Mother might end the war, I also wanted her to restore those we had lost. Unfortunately even with absorbing some of Mother’s power, we couldn’t fully replicate all of her incredible ability to control reishi. It wasn’t enough to end the war, we want to put the world back to the proper state it should be. Jigoku was created for this purpose.”

“Then the last piece is in place,” Discord said suddenly, settling back in his seat with a disgruntled look, “I had always wondered why you’d wanted my help so badly. Why you wanted me in Zero Division. It’s making sense now. The Hogyoku. When I created that, you realized I could also aid you in the methods of using all the soul energy you're using Hell to store up. I could help you figure out how to rebuild the souls of the gods who died in the war.”

Glory looked Discord in the eye, a small confirming smile on her lips, “I had more reasons than that to offer you a place beside us, Discord, but your genius was indeed one of them. Your understanding of the structure of the soul is such that you’d make it far easier for us to restore those lost to us. We could do it ourselves eventually, but I’d rather have your help, not to mention keep you preserved in the new world to come after.”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘preserved’?” asked Sunset, and this time it was Medley who responded, earning an irked look from Glory.

“Oh, that’s Glory’s idea of being merciful and ‘compassionate’. You see, she wants all of our old friends and family back, which means grinding up the souls that used to make up their base components for ‘reassembly’, but because Jigoku makes a nice big soup of it all, it’s been more or less figured out that we can spare a few thousand souls from the process. So in Glory’s oh so great wisdom, she decided we’d take our time and let you mortal souls prove yourselves. You guys get to live however many dozens of lives it takes for you to either end up in Jigoku, or become ‘worthy’ in one of our eyes. You see, each of us Zero Division members gets to pick souls we like for preservation. Any soul we deem worthy, for whatever reason. That was part of our agreement. So if you’re a fantastic artistic soul, maybe you catch Blossom’s eye. If you’re a crazy party animal who has enough of a ‘fun’ spirit, maybe Minty snaps you up. Show a ridiculous amount of loyalty and honor, and maybe you’ll impress Bowtie. Have a big enough stick up your ass, then who knows, Glory might take you in as well. As for me, I’m not much for that whole process. But you get the idea.”

“What Medly’s disrespectful words convey is, in essence, the core of the Zero Plan,” Glory said with finality, “I wish to preserve what souls among mortals show themselves deserving. The rest, after generously being allowed to live many times, and only after proving theri final lack of worth by falling into Jigoku, will return the very soul energy that they took from the corpses of our brothers and sisters and give it back. Then, the world will be made right once again. Maybe then I will consider restoring Mother as well, after forcing her to acknowledge that I was... right...”

Sunset had no words. Not for that. It was crazy, and she was having the hardest time getting her head wrapped around it all. On some level she could feel the pain that Glory must have gone through watching her family die one after another... but to come to this conclusion about it all? To concoct a plan that would callously and cruelly destroy not merely the lives, but the very souls of countless individuals to try to get back what was lost? Forget the guilt of those whose crimes had put them in Hell. Forget the notion of ‘preservation’. The particular arguments over the right or wrongs of all of this didn't matter to Sunset, because for her there would be no argument that’d justify a plan that required sacrifice and suffering of this scale. 

As she struggled to find words to express this, Scorpan did it for her, and quite a bit more simply than Sunset may have managed.

“No.”

“No?” Glory repeated, slowly, and Scorpan’s reiatsu rose in a crackling tide around him. 

“No, Glory. This is not why Soul Society exists. Perhaps it is the reason you made it, but it is not why I lead it, and it is not why every single Soul Reaper has fought for the past eight thousand years. We exist to protect the cycle of mortal reincarnation, so that every soul gets to live through its natural span of life in eternal balance. The world you seek to create with this twisted design...”

A tectonic shift in his reiatsu hammered down upon the proceedings, and his leathery brown hand had his Zanpaktou out in a fraction of a breath. Dull gray metal glinted from the seemingly simple katana with the black leather wrapped hilt, but the aura of power the rose from within it and the old man was difficult even for the Zero Division to ignore. 

“Once we called you the ‘Royal Guard’, but all of that was a lie. The Soul Queen, the Spirit Queen, our Mother, has been desecrated by your betrayal. I built the Gotei 13 with my own hands at your behest, believing that you still wanted a world of balance and peace for all souls. I had blinded myself, but no longer. I denounce you, Glory, and those who follow you. The Gotei 13 will never accept your Zero Plan as long as I breathe.”

Glory stared at him, as did all of her fellows of the Zero Division. Slowly, yet with immeasurable power and purpose, she stood and faced Scorpan directly. Her eyes reflected his own with the same unbreakable will as her hand went to her own blade’s hilt.

“So be it."