//------------------------------// // Chapter XX: Cavius, the Calamitous Cavern // Story: A Purple Pony Princess's Problems on Planet Popstar // by ANerdWithASwitch //------------------------------// “Alright Sunburst, I think that’s enough wine for you.” Sunburst, still with a tear-stained face, whimpered a little bit as Starlight grabbed ahold of his wineglass and levitated it away from him. “B-but, they just teleported thirty kilometers straight up!” he made a token effort to complain. “Which is far from the most impossible feat they’ve pulled off in the last few hours,” Starlight retorted. “I think you stopped drinking because of that a while ago.” Sunburst sniffled again. “N-no, you’re right,” he admitted. “My dad died a few years ago, and now there’s a chance we could get Sunset back and I can’t–I don’t want–I just…” “Don’t wanna consider that ya might lose her, too?” Applejack finished, cutting in. Sunburst just nodded as an answer. Pinkie, in mere moments, had launched herself across the room to wrap him up in a hug. Celestia joined as well, comfortingly wrapping a wing around Sunburst. Starlight sat to the side, looking a bit uncomfortable at the prospect of the group hug going on beside her, but was yoinked into it by a pink hoof soon enough. Rarity was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, Fluttershy had a distinctive sadness about her, and Rainbow was trying her best to feign disinterest and focus on the screen. Applejack raised an eyebrow at the lack of response from Discord. “What, no snarky response from ya?” Discord huffed. “As much as I detest the idea of…tact,” he spat, as if the very word was poison to him, “I do know how much it would be considered so dreadfully rude to interrupt something like this.” That got him a soft smile from Fluttershy. “If I may, Discord,” Luna said, snapping attention to her from those outside of the embracing mass of equines. “What time is it in Equestria, currently? Surely if it is close to morning, Tia and I will have to leave soon to perform our duties.” Discord rolled his eyes again and snapped his paw. “There, your precious celestial cycle will be preserved for a few more hours.” “Oh?” Luna questioned. “What, you don’t believe me?” Discord gasped, a paw over his chest. “Oh the betrayal, to be thought a liar by one so dear to the highest authority in the land. Surely, you believe this can end in no way but my second imprisonment.” “No, I do believe your assertion, Discord,” Luna refuted. “I just find it surprising that one such as you would do something so…orderly.” Discord scoffed. “Please, watching your reactions to this is far more entertaining!” He once more reached into his popcorn bag, retrieving an entire raw potato that he tossed into his mouth. “Besides, how am I supposed to watch Celly nearly get a heart attack every five minutes if she isn’t here to watch!” That got him a glare from the Princess of the Sun, but he laughed it off all the same. “So, what’s the next stop?” Sunset asked as they rushed towards the next point of light. “If I remember the order of the planets right, we should be coming up on Cavius next,” Marx answered. “Its surface doesn’t have a lot going on, but it’s absolutely covered in caves.” “Caves like the one on Hotbeat, or actual caves?” Sunset inquired. “Actual caves,” Marx clarified. “We should be able to leave the Warp Star safely here.” Sunset nodded as they approached the planet. Just like the others, it was far smaller than actual planets–dwarf planet sized, at most. Cavius seemed to lack vegetation on its surface, covered in a gray, rocky crust. Pockmarked across the entire thing was a large number of openings, presumably to the cavernous interior, but that wasn’t what drew Sunset’s eye. No, what she was focusing on was the massive point of light on the surface. “What’s that?” she asked. “Pretty much everything on Cavius lives in one city,” Marx explained. “If we aim for that, we can figure out where the Fountain is by asking around, probably.” Sunset maneuvered the Warp Star to aim for that as their landing point. As they entered the atmosphere, she spoke up. “So how much do you know about Cavius’s culture?” “Pretty much nothing at all,” Marx admitted. “I’ve never been and I don’t know anyone who has.” “So we’re going in blind, got it,” Sunset said. “Here’s to hoping the locals are friendly.” They were close enough now to see the city proper. It was massive, sprawling out from the foot of a mountain all the way to the horizon. The vast majority of buildings appeared to be houses, but near the mountain itself they generally got taller. Not quite skyscraper-sized, but taller than most buildings in Canterlot barring the palace. Speaking of palaces, built into the mountain was a giant one, rivaling even Canterlot Palace’s size. Unlike Canterlot Palace though, which was constructed as an actual government building, this seemed to be one, giant room. The windows into it were utterly massive, allowing Sunset to see an equally massive behemoth inside on an absurdly large throne. She promptly decided that she did not want to fuck with that. Moving on, she looked around the rest of the base of the mountain. Near the palace was what looked like their best spot to land: a large building with bright, flashing lights pointing up to the sky and a sizable crowd in front of it. They spiraled around a couple times to scout out exactly where to land before Sunset plunged the Warp Star down, decelerating just enough to comfortably step off before it shattered. She grinned as the fragments absorbed themselves into her horn. “Yep, I’m definitely getting better at that.” “It’s better than getting thrown onto the floor, at least,” Marx agreed. Sunset began making for the building. Now that they had a closer look at it, she could see that it was built into the mountain itself, the circular exterior of it protruding from the slope. “All we gotta do is find someone to ask about where the Fountain is and be on our way!” A very loud snicker off to the side interrupted them before Marx could reply. “You hear that, bro?” a yellow Bonkers asked, loud enough to cause a scene and draw the crowd’s attention. “A couple o’ newbies are tryin’ for the Fountain!” A second Bonkers, this one purple, joined in on the laughter. “Look at ‘em! Betcha they don’t even make it down three floors!” Sunset raised an unamused eyebrow, while Marx grinned his fishing-for-information grin. “Floors?” The yellow Bonkers wiped a tear from his eye as he continued to laugh. “Listen! They don’t even know the floor system!” “Y’see, here on Cavius, we enjoy this little thing called trial by combat,” the purple Bonkers explained. “Bloodsport, if you will,” the yellow one added. “An’ if ya wanna see the Fountain, ya’ve gotta get through ten floors o’ it!” purple elaborated. “But you scrawny little things won’t even last two, I bet!” Sunset rolled her eyes. As much as Celestia had detested her picking fights with guards, there was a reason the guard captain had liked her. The one from before that Shining whatever pony got the job, at least. That reason was rather simple: she was able to knock the more arrogant recruits down a peg with relative ease. This, it seemed, was no different. Her horn glowing, she wrenched purple’s hammer from his grip and slammed it into the ground. The stone tile it impacted was pretty much completely pulverized, and the vibration sent most of the close-by crowd stumbling. “Where do we sign up?” The Bonkers looked at each other and grinned. “So, you two are looking to try your hand-” the Waddle Dee running signups blinked, “er, hoof in the Arena?” “Yepperoni!” Marx declared. “So is there anything special we’ve gotta do to sign up, or…” The Waddle Dee looked over his glasses and adjusted his bowtie. “Well, for one thing, we don’t allow competitors to sign up as a team except for during special events.” Marx pouted. “Figures. Eh, I wouldn’t’ve been much help in actual fights anyhow.” “Don’t put yourself down that much!” Sunset griped. “You’re…good at insulting things to distract them?” “Case in point,” Marx stage whispered to the Waddle Dee, “that.” The Dee chuckled. “You can still watch, at least.” “I assume that the matches are in an actual colosseum so people can watch, then?” Sunset asked. “Sort of,” the Waddle Dee answered vaguely. “But on top of that this’ll be televised!” Sunset blinked. “Huh?” “Mhm!” the Dee confirmed. “We don’t often get challengers from off-world, so…” he slid a piece of paper and a pen across the counter, “can you just sign this real quick? It’s just an agreement for us to broadcast your fights. And also that we are not liable for any injuries you might sustain in combat.” Sunset levitated the document up to her and began speed-reading. Everything did seem to be in order, at least as much as bloodsport could be, so she shrugged and signed. “If it gets us closer to the Fountain, might as well.” “Great!” the Dee excitedly took the paper back. “Now, technically, I’m supposed to test your mettle to make sure you won’t just get stomped on Floor On-” Sunset cut him off by telekinetically grabbing his feet and flipping him upside down. “Is that sufficient?” “Yes,” he deadpanned as his glasses fell off. “I was going to say that that little altercation on the street proved that I don’t need to test you. Can you put me down and give me my glasses back, please?” Sunset blinked, and quickly did as he asked. “Sorry.” She was still entirely unsure of how she knew a Waddle Dee was grinning, even with no visible mouth. “Don’t be! We need that kind of energy during the fights, so keep it up!” He looked at Marx and pointed to a side entrance. “Spectator stands are through that way, and since you’re not a Cavius native and came here with a challenger, we won’t charge you.” Marx grinned and ran off to claim a seat. Turning back to Sunset, the Waddle Dee pulled out a bag and placed it on the counter. “Here are the healing items that you are allowed. Use of them during a fight is strictly banned and will result in a disqualification, but you’re free to eat as much as you want between fights.” Sunset peeked inside. Three maxim tomatoes and three tangerines. “The Bonkers from earlier said that there were ten floors?” “There are, yes,” the Waddle Dee confirmed. Sunset nodded firmly, beginning a plan. She’d need to ration her heals sparingly, but she was confident that she could make it through this. “Any other restrictions?” “You’re not allowed to do anything lethal, and none of your opponents will be aiming to kill, either,” the Waddle Dee added. “Other than that, anything goes.” “Wasn’t planning on it,” Sunset assured. Pursing her lips, she looked right at him. “I’m ready.” The Dee pointed to the opulent doors at the front of the Arena. “The main entrance is for challengers. Feel free to wait inside there; we’ll call you out into the ring when the first fight is ready to begin. You’re on in fifteen minutes!” “I…am uncertain how I feel about this,” Celestia admitted, much to everypony’s shock. Discord, of course, displayed that shock in the most Discord way possible. “My my, is old Celly warming up to the idea of violence?” Without leaving his seat, he stretched his torso, bent around the still-sullen Sunburst and Starlight, and got right up in Celestia’s face. Plucking a hair off her mane, he peered at the flowing magical strand with a magnifying glass. “Well it certainly seems to be you. Are you sure that you haven’t been replaced by a changeling, though?” Celestia chuckled. “I am sure that I would know if I was replaced by a changeling, Discord.” “Well, this is just a complete tonal shift, then!” he celebrated. “How soon before I can make my chaos games a reality?” Celestia gave him a Look. “Never.” Discord pouted. “I take it you have an additional explanation, dear sister?” Luna prodded. Celestia sighed. “I do not condone violent solutions to problems,” she clarified, “but my disapproval of Sunset learning combat magic was part of what led to our falling out. Clearly she is a…fan of this kind of bloodsport. If she must get involved in something like this, I would much prefer for it to be in a controlled environment.” Discord huffed. “Fine, use the logical argument. You ponies really are no fun sometimes.” Sunset paced around in the waiting room, her eyes constantly flicking to the clock. She knew that she could do this, no matter what this Arena threw at her. She had been Celestia’s personal protégé, damnit! She shouldn’t be this nervous! But she was. Sunset stopped pacing and forced herself to focus on her breathing. She could hear the crowd gathered in the stands outside, the quiet murmur of anticipation permeating the entire space. Any moment now, and it would begi- “Wwwwwwwelcome back folks, to live coverage of Cavius’s very own Arena!” The speakers went on all at once, amplifying the voice of the Waddle Dee from out front as the audience’s cheers bled through the wall. “We’ve got a very special program for you today, because here comes a challenger from off-world!” Well, there was her queue. Sunset began making for the door. “Standing at one hundred and three centimeters from hoof to horn and weighing in at ninety-four kilograms, this unicorn will pack far more of a punch than a glance at her would say!” the announcer excitedly declared. “Coming all the way from Planet Popstar, please welcome Sunset Shimmer!” Sunset casually strode through the door and into the Arena proper, the crowd cheering wildly as sports fans are wont to do. She stared at them, barely able to spot Marx’s jester hat in the third row amongst the sea of spectators. The Arena was packed, and it seemed that this was the main entertainment that Cavius usually got. She grinned the best grin she could and waved to the crowd. As she did, she glanced around. It seemed that, at the very least, her first match would be a no-holds-barred spar. The ground was a completely even dirt floor, and the ring entirely circular. The Arena wasn’t open to the air–there was a rock ceiling brightly lit by scores of lights–but the ceiling was so high up it might as well have been. The far side of the ring contained a door, where Sunset assumed that her opponents would be coming in from. “And for her first opponent,” the announcer began shouting again, “you all know him as the Beetle King, let’s give a Cavius welcome to Boris the Bugzzy!” The crowd outright exploded in cheers, and Sunset got the feeling that she was very much not going to be the favorite to win in any of these matches. No matter, she was going to win them anyway. Her adversary strutted forward, apparently confident in his victory. The Bugzzy chittered in excitement, shifting his right foot backward and preparing to run. “BEGIN!” the announcer shouted. Immediately, Boris exploded into action, rushing forward in an attempt to grab her between his mandibles. For a moment, Sunset pondered if she should just set him on fire and be done with it, but it was just the first round. She felt a grin cross her face. So, they wanted a show? She could give them a show. Even as Boris was rushing forward, Sunset simply strode towards her opponent lazily. Once he was within a few meters of her, she lit her horn, and the crowd gasped as she caught him in her telekinetic grasp. In a swift motion, she sent him flying, and he impacted the wall with a resounding crash. Sunset tutted in disappointment when the dust cleared and revealed an unconscious Bugzzy and a delighted crowd. She had thought that it would at least provide some amount of challenge, but she bet that she could get more out of sparring with the one in Castle Dedede. Hell, she hadn’t even used any pyroturgy. As Boris was carted out of the Arena by staff, the announcer spoke up. “Oof, and it looks like our challenger has secured a quick victory over Boris! Let’s hope that future matches have a bit more going on! Does she wish to use any of her healing items?” “No, I’m good!” Sunset called. She stumbled a bit when the ground began moving. Quickly, though, she realized that the floor itself was descending into the ground; it seemed as if each “floor” was physically lower down than the last, but whoever had designed this arena had made it their mission to keep the fights visible to the audience at all times. After a few moments, the floor had descended to the correct height, revealing another door directly below the last. “Next up, we have the master of all things explosive, Castle Cavius’s very own bomb tech, Aiden the Poppy Bros Senior!” The door flew open, and the Poppy Bros hopped out to face Sunset. “I wonder, Miss Shimmer, if you will burn as bright as your name suggests.” Sunset grinned and lit her horn with a blank spell, ready to cast whatever was necessary. “Oh, I’m sure this match will be quite explosive. I won’t be the one burning, though.” “We shall see about that,” Aiden taunted back. “BEGIN!” Instantly, Aiden threw three bombs her way, which were met midair by three streams of fire from her horn. They all detonated in the air, much to the oohs and aahs of the crowd. Aiden bounced a bit to his left. “I see that you, too, are a user of the art of fire.” “What can I say?” Sunset smiled. “I like it hot.” They spent a few moments moving in a bit of a circle, Aiden taking the initiative to lob a bomb every so often while Sunset was content to play defensively. Neither was performing at their best, and both were fully aware that they were simply testing the other’s strengths. “‘Twould seem that we are at a stalemate,” Aiden commented. “Mayhaps,” Sunset replied. Aiden grinned. “Oh, but this next bomb may be a bit of a…shocker.” The bomb he threw, instead of having the usual wick, was sparking with electricity. Sunset’s eyes widened–she was quite a bit surprised that a Poppy Bros had access to elemental bombs. Acting quickly, she grasped the dirt floor in her magic and wrenched it upward into a pillar, intercepting the bomb and grounding the electrical discharge. Aiden seemed a bit put out that his trick was dispatched so easily, and Sunset smirked at him. It looked like he didn’t have anything else in his bag of tricks based on his expression, so she finally decided to go on the offensive. Sprinting around her pillar, she charged at Aiden. Panicked, he lobbed three more bombs at her, but she was ready. She couldn’t just detonate them before they reached her–she was close enough now that she’d be caught in the explosion. But she still had time to throw up a shield before they could get too close, and the closest one hit her shield instead of her, harmlessly detonating against it. The other two she was able to grab in her telekinesis and lob back at Aiden, and the dual explosions sent him hurtling backwards. She followed it up with a flamethrower spell, right as he was getting back up to throw another bomb, detonating it in his hands. That proved to be too much, and the consequent slam into the wall knocked him out as the crowd cheered. “And with that explosive victory, Sunset Shimmer moves on to Floor Three! From here on, we will no longer ask if you would like to use a healing item between floors. You just have to eat it during the floor transition!” “Got it!” Sunset shouted. With the affirmation that she’d heard, the floor once again descended, revealing a third door. “Up next, here comes the champion of the Cavern 500, the Grand Wheelie who they call the Drift King!” With a sound not unlike a motorcycle rev, a Grand Wheelie burst through the door and drifted to a stop as the crowd cheered louder than they ever had so far. He seemed to soak up the attention, bouncing a bit in his tire. “BEGIN!” The fight, if Sunset was being honest, was just more of the same. Wait for the Grand Wheelie to charge at her, grab him in her telekinesis, and slam it into the wall. He was a bit hardier than the Bugzzy, sure, but he really just did not change up his strategy at all. She didn’t even have to move. Hell, she even decided to really show off by transmuting some of the dirt in front of it into soap to finish it off by sending it crashing into the wall under its own power. She found it hilarious, and if the crowd’s laughter was anything to go by, they did too. The next two floors were also disappointingly easy. She’d gotten a bit careless fighting the King Doo on Floor Four and had to use one of her tangerines, but the Mister Frosty they had her fighting against on Floor Five was just a horrible matchup for him, really. She wasn’t quite sure if it was just the power boosts from the Warp Stars helping out, but the Frosty employed by the Meta-Knights had been a harder fight than this. As the unconscious Mister Frosty was removed from the Arena, even the crowd had begun to get a bit bored at how easy it had been for her. “Well, our challenger has been storming through everything we can throw at her, but next up is a fighter that’s sure to put on a good show!” the announcer declared as the floor descended. “She’s mean, she’s green, and she’s got one hell of a sword, it’s Jillian the Gigant Edge!” The being that emerged from the door on Floor Six truly lived up to the name of Gigant Edge. She was almost two meters tall and covered head to toe in heavy, green armor. She wielded a sword nearly as large as she was, and on her other arm held a spiked shield. She did not speak, instead simply lumbering forward. Both fighters eyed each other warily, awaiting the call they both knew would come soon. “BEGIN!” Sunset acted immediately, bounding forward to send in a light magical attack to probe Jillian’s defenses. As expected, the small beam bounced right off of her armor, and she responded by rushing forward in kind, far faster than Sunset had been expecting. Her eyes widened and she jumped backwards just in time to avoid the blade, which slammed into the ground and kicked up a massive cloud of dust. Sunset turned that right around on her, using the only atmoturgical spell she could perform reliably: wind. Early spellcasters had been quite uncreative when naming their spells. Regardless, the dust was pushed directly in front of Jillian’s helmet, and she stumbled back, coughing. Sunset pressed the advantage, running in and sending a stream of fire Jillian’s way. The swordswoman, unfortunately, was nimble enough to dodge it and raise her shield to block Sunset’s followup attack: ripping out part of the floor and launching it at her. Sunset frowned. She needed to get rid of that shield to have any chance at getting at Jillian herself, but the thing was attached to her arm. The only way to really get rid of it would be to melt it, but sending fire right at her was out. She could just dodge it. As the Gigant Edge shifted, though, Sunset’s eyes caught sight of something she just might be able to use: Jillian’s sword. Yes, her grip on her sword wasn’t quite as tight as the one on her shield, so if Sunset could get it away from her… Her plan formed, Sunset rushed her again. It wasn’t the best plan, and she wasn’t entirely a fan of using herself as bait, but she needed some way to bait out an attack. Jillian, of course, responded to her sprint by setting up her shield, but Sunset had expected that. A token magical beam bounced off of it again, and just as Sunset suspected, the swordswoman responded with an attack of her own. Jillian ran at her, sword at the ready, and once again missed as Sunset proved herself to be the more agile of the two. Or at least, so she thought. Before she could get a good telekinetic grip on Jillian’s sword, the Gigant Edge whirled around far faster than Sunset thought something of her stature could. She didn’t even have time to get a shield of her own up before Jillian slammed hers into her, so the unicorn had to settle for raising her foreleg and hoping that that at least protected her vitals. Shit, she mentally cursed as she was flung through the air, roughly landing a few meters away and involuntarily crying out in pain. The spiked shield hadn’t hit anything vital, it felt like, but she had felt it slice her left leg. Sparing a glance down, she immediately felt a bit woozy. She was bleeding. Profusely. Jillian lumbered forward, and Sunset still dragged herself to her hooves despite the pain. She needed to end this quickly, given that she wasn’t very much a fan of the idea of bleeding out. She’d gotten cocky, and she recognized the trick for what it was: the first five floors were just a warmup, and it was very much uphill from here. The crowd went silent in anticipation as Jillian lumbered forward. Assured as she was in her victory, she seemingly felt no need to speed this up. Sunset was at her mercy and everyone knew it. But Sunset wasn’t the only one who could fall prey to arrogance. Jillian overextended on her strike, thinking that Sunset, weakened as she was, was an easy target. She quickly proved that notion false as she stopped Jillian’s blade short, the telltale sign of telekinesis–her aquamarine magic–coating it. She could almost feel the tension in the crowd rise with the sudden development. The two combatants stood there for a moment, Jillian unsure of what to do and Sunset straining to ignore the pain in her leg. That moment didn’t last, though, and Sunset quickly wrenched the sword from Jillian’s grip, turning the Gigant Edge’s own edge against her. Jillian raised her shield, intending to end the battle with a shield bash instead, but Sunset had other plans. Channeling her knowledge of pyroturgy, the sword caught ablaze and glowed red hot. Sunset could see Jillian’s eyes widen behind her helmet, and her grin almost turned feral. She pressed the flaming weapon right up to the shield, which even began to melt from the heat. It was still too slow, and Sunset could feel herself tapping into her cutie mark magic directly as she turned up the heat even more. The sword, at this point, was melting too, but that didn’t matter too much once Sunset was through with the shield and beginning to direct the molten metal towards Jillian’s armor. Finally, the Gigant Edge spoke the first proper words of the match. “I yield!” And that was enough for the fight to officially be considered over. The crowd went wild, but Sunset had other things to worry about. As soon as Jillian left the field, she opened up the healing bag and popped a tangerine in her mouth. The wound closed and she stopped bleeding, but she winced as the dizziness remained. Sighing, she ate the last of her tangerines to replenish the blood she had lost, and was down to three maxim tomatoes. It could’ve been worse, she supposed. She was lucky enough that she had just sustained a flesh wound; if something was actually broken she would have needed to use one of the maxim tomatoes. As it was, she still had enough food to last for the next three breaks, and if things continued like this, she’d need it. Sighing, she glanced down at her foreleg as the ground began to descend for the sixth time. Her usually orange fur was stained red with her own blood, and there was a pool of it a few paces behind her. She shook her head to clear it. She could wash it off later, but right now she had to focus on the battles. “What a stunning performance we had there, folks!” the announcer cheerfully stated, as if Sunset hadn’t just nearly bled out. “But is our challenger truly a one-trick pony? She’s burned through the competition so far, but now it’s time to see if she can fight fire with fire!” The seventh door flung open, and a Fire Lion strutted out of it. His mane ablaze, he let out a roar and charged, not even waiting for the announcer. Of course, he still shouted, even as Sunset was actively dodging the lion’s strike. “BEGIN!” This fight went even more poorly. The Fire Lion was fast, so much so that Sunset almost couldn’t track it. Whenever she thought she could get a good shot on it with some cryokinetic spell or another, it deftly leapt out of the way. Once, when it landed behind her, it had managed to score a hit with its fire breath, singing away much of the fur on her right foreleg and resulting in what Sunset estimated were first or second degree burns. She managed to trap it in a block of ice after a few minutes of back-and-forth like that, but much like Kirby, it busted out in an explosion. Unlike when she had fought Kirby, though, this explosion also included a large amount of force behind it from the expanding steam, which launched Sunset against the wall and snapped her left hind leg. Unable to really stand, she did manage to trap the Fire Lion a second time, and this time it stuck. All the cryoturgy she had been doing had cooled down the area significantly, preventing the lion from properly using its fire. After thirty incredibly tense seconds of it being trapped and immobile in the ice, the Fire Lion was disqualified and she was given leave to eat her first maxim tomato to deal with the broken bones and burned skin. Floor Eight was somehow even worse. She would’ve expected the elephant-like Phan Phan to be an easier target–elephants were famously big targets and relatively slow compared to something like a pony. Even with this one being so different to a usual elephant, she was confident that she could take it down. She knew she was in for a challenge, though, as soon as it started rolling at her. The fight went similarly to Floor Seven’s, though Sunset was using her preferred pyroturgy. Unfortunately, the Phan Phan was able to just roll through much of her fire, rendering many of her attacks nearly useless. The operative term there is “nearly.” As long as Sunset kept herself paying attention, she could dodge the Phan Phan’s attacks and chip away at it. Her fire was still doing some damage as the bipedal elephant rolled through it, so she resolved herself to just keep this up. As much as she wanted to just pick up the Phan Phan and hurl it into the wall, much like she had done to the Bugzzy and Grand Wheelie, it was legitimately too heavy to easily redirect its momentum. Plus, as loath as she was to admit it, she was starting to get tired. Not so much magically–she was still good to keep casting–but it seemed that the healing food worked far better on repairing physical damage, rather than curing exhaustion. The longer this went on, the more tired she’d get. Unfortunately, the fight continued for several minutes, and Sunset was far from infallible. After a solid eight and a half minutes of the Phan Phan rolling at her and her just barely jumping out of the way, it got close enough to actually score a hit. Just as Sunset had been about to jump out of the way, the (now rather injured) Phan Phan had skidded to a stop and lashed out with its trunk, wrapping it around her previously-burned foreleg. Before she could properly react, the Phan Phan squeezed. Sunset felt multiple things break in her leg, but by this point she’d broken so many bones in the last couple weeks that she was a bit desensitized to the pain. She was able to just completely power through it, and the Phan Phan had made a critical error in coming to a stop and attaching itself to her: she now had a completely still target. Raising up her other forehoof, Sunset punched the Phan Phan right in the eye, forcing it to involuntarily relinquish its hold on her leg. Focusing her magic while making sure to not put too much pressure on her injured limb, Sunset held the bipedal elephant still long enough for her to rip another chunk from the ground, compress it, and hit the Phan Phan hard enough with it to knock it out. Once the unconscious Phan Phan had been removed from the Arena, Sunset ate her second maxim tomato, relishing in the feeling of her bones once again being unbroken. Two floors left. The ninth door now in view, the announcer began his spiel once again. “Only one challenge remains before our challenger faces off against her final opponent! But this will surely be her toughest foe yet!” Something banged on the door. “They’re big!” A second banging sound. “They’re strong!” With a third strike, the doors flew open to reveal her opponent…s. “Give it up for the Bonkers Brothers!” The crowd’s cheering increased dramatically as the two Bonkers that Sunset had run into earlier strutted out onto the field. She couldn’t actually see said crowd at this point–the floor was far too far down for her to look into the stands–but it was still almost enough for her to wince from the volume. “Well would ya look at that,” the yellow Bonkers said, “the lil’ pony’s got some fight to her after all!” The purple one twirled his hammer in his hand and took a fighting stance. “You ain’t gonna get your little hoofsies on my hammer that easily this time!” Sunset smiled and lit her horn. “Please, gentlemen,” she taunted, “do you think I’ll even need to take your weapons?” “Ooh, sounds like this match is gonna be spicy!” the announcer noted. “BEGIN!” As usual, they all exploded into action. With two targets, Sunset knew that this was going to be significantly more difficult than her previous fights, especially since they immediately split up. One–the Bonkers in yellow–charged directly at her while purple stuck to the edge of the Arena. Once again trying to test her opponents’ strategies and defenses, she sent a small magical beam purple’s way before his brother could reach her. It barely took two seconds for the yellow-clad ape to get her in range, though. Quickly, he brought down his hammer with all of his strength, clearly intending to finish the fight early while she was presumably distracted by his brother. It just bounced off of the shield she generated, and yellow stumbled back from the recoil. Before Sunset could follow up with an attack of her own, though, an explosion launched her to the right, where she landed with an oof. Thankfully, it felt like her left side hadn’t been seriously injured from it–it just stung like a bitch and moving was going to be a bit painful until she could eat. Hissing in pain, she got up and stared at where the explosion had come from. Purple stared right back, retrieved a glowing coconut from thin air, and prepared to bat it at her again. Mentally filing away that she was going to have to watch out for ranged attacks, she refocused on the yellow Bonkers, who was charging at her again. She generated a shield in front of her and, expecting some trickery, prepped a second shield as well. That proved to be fruitful, as the Bonkers had feinted. Instead of another head-on attack, he spun around to target her side instead, but only found his hammer bouncing off of another magical shield. Somewhat absentmindedly, Sunset also intercepted the coconut flying at her with a stream of fire as she grabbed the stumbling yellow Bonkers in her telekinesis. It took a heave of magical effort, but she sent him hurtling into the wall as well. That really did seem to be her go-to strategy today, huh. Unfortunately, this did not go nearly as well as her previous wall-slams. Instead of being knocked out, or even really stunned, yellow just peeled himself off the wall with the biggest shit-eating grin. “Well, Bro,” he said, “looks like we might need to put in some effort after all!” Purple joined him in grinning, but said nothing himself. Instead, he and yellow both ran forward, and Sunset once again decided to play it defensive. She knew that she could absolutely outlast these two, so she just needed them to wait until they tired themselves out. Then yellow jumped, using purple’s shoulders as a springboard to launch even higher into the air. The ape performed a triple somersault in the air, presumably just for the style points, before coming down right for her at the same time purple raised his hammer to strike. The two strikes coming in simultaneously forced her to stretch her shield thinner, covering a wider area. And she could feel the difference–their hammers hitting home sent a jolt down her horn and she winced as the shield physically cracked, much like what Meta Knight had pulled off before. The Bonkers noticed too, capitalizing off of it as hard as possible. While yellow landed deftly on his feet, purple swung back around to hit the shield again, and Sunset cried out as it shattered. Yellow wasted no time lashing out, hitting his hammer into Sunset’s left shoulder faster than she could get another shield up. She went flying, but the Bonkers weren’t done yet. Purple swung his hammer, seemingly not really targeting anything, but as he was doing so yellow jumped up and bounced off of the hammer. He flew towards her even faster than she was moving, and Sunset’s eyes widened as his own hammer came down on her. This one hit her in the face. For once, Sunset was the one crashing into a wall at speed. She sunk back down to the floor, not having been in this much pain since she fought Kirby. Her left shoulder was definitely dislocated, but at least her nose wasn’t broken. Her mouth, though, was screaming in pain, and she could feel something hard on her tongue that tasted quite strongly of iron. Shit, she realized, that’s a tooth. It’s generally a pretty bad idea to stand on a dislocated limb, but Sunset pushed herself to her hooves anyway. She needed to quite literally make a stand here; if she lied there too long she’d be disqualified. “Had enough yet?” Purple taunted from halfway across the arena. Hmm, not quite, Sunset thought. She still had a few tricks up her sleeve that she’d wanted to save for the final fight, but she’d once again underestimated her opponents and needed to pull it out early. Defiantly, she spit out her knocked-out tooth and looked right at the two Bonkers. Predictably, they charged right for her. A wave of heat spilled off of her, sending the two of them stumbling a bit at the sudden temperature change. That was enough for her to grab yellow in her telekinesis and lift him up. Instead of just slamming him into the wall again, she made it very clear what she was doing. Her magic wrenched open his fingers, forcing him to drop his hammer, before her telekinesis spread to his entire arm and she began pulling. Sunset smiled at the Bonkers still on the ground. With a tooth missing and her gums bleeding, she was sure it looked rather disturbing–exactly what she was going for. “The rules state that anything nonlethal is allowed,” she stated, her voice slightly distorted from the blood in her mouth. Purple’s eyes widened in realization. “And well, as far as I know, a Bonkers doesn’t need both arms to live.” Purple’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.” Sunset kept her smile as steady as she could when yellow yelped in pain. “Oh, I’m not sure you want to test that.” Almost as a bit of an afterthought, she sent some blood magic his way as well. “B-bro,” yellow stuttered, his own eyes wide. “I can’t feel my arm.” Purple glanced between his brother and Sunset a few times before he dropped his own hammer and sighed. “We yield.” The crowd, for once, was nearly silent. It seemed that no one knew how to react to a development like this. The audience had expected quite a bit more bloodshed, not for the Bonkers to simply capitulate to the threat. It was far from honorable, but hey, it got Sunset closer to the Fountain, and that’s all she really cared about. There was a confused smattering of applause as the Bonkers left the arena, yellow rubbing his still-numb arm while shooting a glare at Sunset. She glared right back, but as soon as they were gone she stuffed her final maxim tomato in her mouth. She was honestly getting rather tired of the taste of tomato, but hopefully this was the last of it for a while. She tasted more of her own blood than tomato juice from this one, anyway. She sighed in relief as the pain subsided and her shoulder relocated itself, but her eyes narrowed as she ran her tongue over her teeth. The gum had stopped bleeding and that wound had closed, but her tooth was still missing. That was…annoying. It seemed that maxim tomatoes, as powerful as they were at bringing someone back from the brink of death, could only heal that which one’s body was already capable of healing. They just sped up the process immensely and made sure the affected area healed to perfection. Bones could be reset and fully healed, blood could be replenished, and tissue could be regenerated. But ponies only had one set of permanent teeth, so there was nothing for the maxim tomato to work with when healing the area. It just closed up the wound in her gums and called it a day. She supposed the effect would be similar if someone lost a limb. It was a stark reminder of the harsh realities of the universe, but it also wasn’t something she could afford to focus on at the moment. Instead she looked to the back wall. The floor had lowered the few meters it usually did, but there was no door in the back. Sunset stared at it, confused, until a thin line appeared down the entire nearly forty-meter tall wall, and the whole thing began to retract. “Now, normally, a challenger’s final opponent before the Fountain would be the Prince,” the announcer’s voice rang out, and Sunset recalled the absolute titan of a being she’d seen through the palace window. Oh fuck, she realized. “But it seems we’ve had a last-minute change! An even more powerful being has taken an interest in Miss Shimmer!” The wall had fully retracted now, revealing an utterly massive cavern behind it, so large it was shrouded almost entirely in darkness. The crowd’s cheering, meanwhile, crescendoed as the sound of a massive footstep and giant splash rocked the Arena. “You all know him as the King of Cavius! Please welcome His Majesty, WHAM…” A giant hand made entirely of diamond slammed down onto the floor, nearly knocking Sunset down from the vibrations alone. “...BAM…” A second hand hit the ground, and Sunset reflexively gulped in fear. “...JEWEL!” The light glinted off of a giant diamond crown, highlighting the titan’s three eyes. Ornate diamond earrings were also visible on either side along with a fanged, frowning mouth, but other than those the being’s face was still too far in the darkness to see well. How the fuck was she supposed to take this thing down? “BEGIN!” Instantly, one of the diamond hands launched straight at her. It didn’t seem to be connected to any arms, so Sunset supposed that there was some magical link between the King and his hands. As much as she would’ve liked to try and figure that magic out, she had a giant punch to worry about. She was able to dodge it fairly easily–inertia seemed to be a bit of a problem for Wham Bam Jewel–and it slammed into the ground. It still kicked up a massive plume of dust, and when that cleared Sunset’s eyes widened at the size of the crater it had formed. “Not aiming to kill?” Really? she thought. The onslaught was still coming, though, and she had to refocus on dodging again lest she became a smear on the floor. If either hand caught her she was definitely a dead mare. Thankfully, the giant didn’t exactly have the best aim. Strike after strike only managed to hit the ground, Sunset escaping by the skin of her teeth every time. She still couldn’t manage to hit back, though. Wham Bam Jewel–she resolved to just shorten it to Jewel in her head, that name was way too long to be thinking–was just too far away and too hard to see to reliably target. As she jumped out of the way of another punch, though, a thought crossed her mind. Not all of Jewel was too far away to target. His hands were rather close by, after all. When that next ground-shaking punch hit the dirt, she had her horn already lit and a spell in mind directed at Jewel’s left hand. Unfortunately, the melting point of diamond was over three and a half thousand degrees, which wasn’t something she could reliably reach even when tapping into her cutie mark magic. Or at least, not fast enough for it to be useful in a fight. Fortunately, she didn’t need to melt the hand. The flash point of diamond, only around nine hundred degrees, was far more attainable. Hearing Jewel wail in pain as his hand caught fire was a bit surreal. The being was so big that a sound that, on any other creature, would be rather high pitched was still a low rumble. Quickly, Jewel retreated his flaming hand higher into the air, forcing Sunset to break her concentration on keeping it hot. He waved it around a bit to put the fire out, and as he was doing so continued attacking Sunset with his other hand. She dodged the next strike as well, but cringed. She probably could just continually set his hands on fire until he gave up, but she was bound to screw up eventually. One mistake here could get her killed, so it wasn’t exactly a risk she was willing to take. She needed a way to get closer faster. As her opponent’s right hand flexed and rose back out of the crater, Sunset stared at it a bit. It was shaped almost exactly like a human hand, but each individual finger segment seemed far more disconnected than a human’s. Instead of knuckles, it was almost like Jewel had the same sort of magic connecting his fingers and his palm as he did between his hand and what Sunset presumed would be his torso. Looking at it, another idea hit her. It was risky, but she would probably be better off trying it rather than spending another half an hour or so dodging punches. As soon as she dodged Jewel’s next strike, she prepared a spell and jumped onto the hand. Her enemy acted almost amused, and tried to get her off like how one would shoo a fly off of their arm. But she stayed right on the back of his right hand no matter how much he shook it–a powerful sticking charm on her hooves had taken care of that. That was a passive charm, at least, allowing her to instead close her eyes and focus most of her attention on feeling for that connective magic. In the meantime, Jewel had successfully put out his flaming left hand, and was quickly moving that in to join in getting Sunset off of him, or even possibly to just crush her and be done with it. Just before he could put his hands together, though, the orange unicorn’s eyes snapped open as she found exactly what she had been looking for and, much like she had done to the tornado on Skyhigh, cast a general dispellment charm on a massive scale. She had been expecting the hand to just collapse to the ground and fall apart, no longer tethered to Jewel himself. Instead, almost like the connective spell was an extended spring, the hand rocketed back towards Jewel’s body with Sunset still stuck to it. She had around half a second to form and execute a new plan before a lot of things happened at once. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, Jewel’s other hand quickly retreating as well as he tried to catch her. She quickly cast Naught Bell’s Explosion and left it behind for the hand to run into. Once she was close enough to Jewel’s face, she disengaged her sticking charm and jumped right as she heard her explosion go off, aiming for his rightmost eye. She could tell that she wasn’t going to make it, though. The trajectory simply hadn’t been right on the retreating hand for her to leap all the way up to Jewel’s eyes. Still, she kept her horn lit and, in desperation, tried anything to get her the extra distance. Had the audience had a closer view, they would have been able to see a small, aquamarine five-pointed star form below Sunset’s right hind hoof. They also would have seen said star quickly move upward, knocking into Sunset herself and propelling her upward by the extra few meters she needed before the star disappeared again. Sunset didn’t really notice how nor care why the boost had happened, though. She just knew that she was close enough to Jewel’s very wide eye now for a clear shot. With a bit of autobioturgy on her right foreleg to increase her own strength, she punched Jewel right in the eye. He wailed in pain again, both, Sunset suspected, from his hand exploding and from getting poked in the eye at high speeds. She wasn’t quite done yet, though, since she was still falling and hitting the ground thirty some meters below was not a fun concept. That was solved with a quick teleport and liberal application of self-levitation to bleed off the momentum. She still hit the ground rather hard, but all-in-all, she’d say that she came out of the interaction far better off than Wham Bam Jewel did. The titan was entirely missing his left hand, the diamond extremity in pieces and on the floor. His right hand was covering his rightmost eye and unable to move very far from his body, while his mouth had contorted into a grimace of both pain and anger. Sunset, meanwhile, stood as tall as she could and grinned widely. She was practically uninjured, if a bit winded, and was proudly displaying that she would win this given enough time. Jewel apparently saw it too, and an incredibly deep grumble resonated around the Arena. “I yield,” he declared, before a series of footsteps and splashes retreated and his face disappeared from view. The crowd gasped, before the stands erupted into a sea of cheering. “WHAT A MATCH!” the announcer shouted. “I’ve been commentating these matches for almost a decade, and this is the first time I’ve seen anybody take down the King! Our challenger has made history here tonight, folks, and has truly earned her reward!” The lights in the cavern Jewel had just been in flicked on, illuminating the Fountain of Dreams. It was on a pedestal of rock several meters above a moat, which itself was filled with the water spilling out of the Fountain. A bridge connected the Arena’s floor to the Fountain’s platform, and Sunset gladly crossed it as the crowd’s cheers and applause rang in her ears. When she reached the Fountain itself, she breathed in deeply as she relished in the feeling of her magic being restored. But something felt…wrong. She frowned as she scrubbed the blood off of her left leg. The Fountain’s magic felt dulled, almost like the Fountain itself detested being reduced to a mere reward. She was sure that the Fountain was incapable of actually feeling that kind of thing–it was an inanimate object, after all–but that was still the vibe she got from it. Deliberately ignoring the crowd’s gasps as she reached up and summoned the Warp Star, which was a dark gray color, she flew it back up the Arena and scanned the crowd for Marx. Quickly, she directed it over to him and the spectators around him all scattered. “Get on.” Marx grinned and hopped on, before Sunset flared her horn and teleported them both out of the Arena, leaving behind a sea of confused audience members and a disappointed announcer. “I was going to ask for an interview…”