That name didn’t mean much to Twilight, sadly. But it would likely mean something to somepony.
She dug her hind legs in and got ready for another attack, feeling herself at the advantage so far. Unless it could hit much harder and much faster, it wouldn’t be able to do anything Twilight couldn’t counter. Meanwhile, Twilight could just whittle it away until there was nothing left. Likely, the creature operating it, Nightmare Moon, knew this.
It would try a different approach.
Twilight might need the same. Throwing it to the moon seemed like a bad idea after what she’d seen minutes ago.
If she could hit it with a full-strength plasma attack, Twilight knew she could destroy it completely. But getting it up there and charging the attack without interruption was her real problem.
“This does give me.”
It drew Twilight’s attention by speaking again. Its next move would be coming soon!
“A chance to destroy you both.”
As if a fire had been lit inside the armor, the soot came bellowing up, carried into the air in streams of blackness. The ashes were so great they temporarily blocked out the rain, then came pouring down all around Twilight even harder than the water had. She was surrounded by them, swirling around her in all directions.
Twilight teleported back, but it was no use. Blackness still surrounded her. A spatial tear…
Sour Sweet pushed a piece of metal, trying to align two holes meant to be bound with a screw.
Almost ready! Sour Sweet and her two lancers would be able to roll out and join the fight any minute now. Two of the three battle dolls were ready and if she could just line up these two dang holes! All this rain and lightning wasn’t making things easy.
As long as nothing bad happened she’d join the fight in…
Sour Sweet heard shouting in the distance. She knew that voice more than she ever cared to.
“Sonata?!” Sour Sweet looked at the banshee, still in her doll, running forward through the rain screaming and crying.
Something was chasing her. It was Pinkie Pie and that specter… Fluttershy! That dumbass was leading those two straight to Sour Sweet’s position. Fighting those two like this would be dicey, to say the least.
“What?! Not this way you idiot!” Sour Sweet called out to her, but Sonata wouldn’t listen or perhaps couldn’t hear.
She’d just have to make do with what she had.
“Everypony! We have to move now! Hit Pinkie Pie with everything you have, then go for Fluttershy!”
Sour Sweet and the other two pilots possessed their dolls. The ghosts behind them stood at the ready.
As she inhabited the doll, the battlefield became much smaller from her new vantage point. Sonata was the size of a baby rabbit now. Sour had half a mind to stomp on her when she got here. That idiot was managing to give her trouble now when they were on the same side!
“I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna!” Sonata screamed and cried as she neared.
“Should we–” One of the other pilots turned to her with hesitation.
“Just fire! She was supposed to die anyway!” Sour Sweet’s voice boomed through her enormous doll.
“Wuh?!” Sonata heard her just then and slid to a halt. “Wait!”
At once, all three dolls fired their back-mounted weaponry. Blue, purple, then green flames shot forth, hitting the ground behind Sonata and erupting into a massive explosion that consumed the entire area.
Sonata didn’t vaporize, sadly, but she was thrown screaming toward them.
More important was the Pinkie Pie question. To be sure, Sour Sweet sent the pilot to her left out to pounce on the billowing flames. The doll charged, jumped, then came crashing down only for an invisible force to throw her onto her back.
The remaining two fired again as Pinkie leapfrogged up onto that doll then again higher into the air. She used her telekinesis to spin around, dodging a second volley. Hitting a psychic of Pinkie’s level wouldn’t be easy. She saw every attack coming.
Pinkie threw a sphere of blue energy down toward Sonata, targeting her instead of the dolls for some reason. The sphere exploded, sending Sonata tumbling again… and knocking a few of her chains off. The banshee was almost free now and started stumbling about aimlessly without the ability to lean on them.
So that was it! Pinkie had the same powers as Zest?!
If that was true, she needed to be destroyed right now!
The other remaining pilot fired a barrage while Sour Sweet charged forward, swiping her claw in Pinkie’s direction. Predictably, Pinkie went on Sour’s back. Sour flipped once and slashed at Pinkie in the air.
Even Pinkie was surprised at how swiftly such a huge construct moved. There had to be a limit to her speed. Pinkie swerved once but now Sour was in a great position! She pulled back; certain this next blow would land.
But she felt something holding her back. Not Pinkie but…
The loose joint gave way! Sour Sweet stumbled and Pinkie grabbed her telekinetically and slammed her into the ground.
“Pinkie!” Fluttershy, possessing a doll on Pinkie’s shoulder, called out to her. “I don’t know if you feel what I feel but there’s a bunch of specters right back there. Underground.”
“I did! We might have to hit that one first.”
They knew.
Pinkie tried sliding forward, underneath the remaining battle doll while Sour struggled to get back up. They were right there!
They needed an even more massive attack. This might kill everypony here, but there was no other choice.
Sour Sweet gave the signal, firing off a flare from her back. Cinch, the specter they felt, came up from underground, ready to break her seal.
A specter was created when a single event killed over a thousand ponies. Though rarely seen, their most terrifying ability was to recreate that disaster. Sour had only seen a seal break once before. It wasn’t Cinch’s but the fire Cinch could produce would consume everypony in the area.
Pinkie spotted her even before coming up and had already thrown a spirit bomb down at the exact right spot!
It was going to be close! The spirit bomb was right on target, in Cinch’s face as soon as she got up. Even when an explosion sounded, Sour couldn’t tell who had been faster. Not until…
It was too small. They got Cinch! And three ponies there were supposed to be blocking her. Just a second later, Sour Sweet could make several ghosts over there floating about without any chains at all. Pinkie really could break them out.
Two more of Sour Sweet’s backups stupidly came up from under the ground and Pinkie freed them in the same way.
But Pinkie’s back was turned!
Sour Sweet kicked her hind legs and pounced down, trying to crush them both. Pinkie saw it coming even from behind and grabbed Sour Sweet’s claws. But the two of them were grappled now, Sour Sweet slowly pressing down, Pinkie pushing out against her.
“Pinkie!” Fluttershy came out of her stuffed bear. “I don’t see where Sonata went. Can you free the ghost controlling that?”
“Not when she’s in that thing.” Pinkie huffed trying to hold Sour Sweet’s paw in the air.
The other two pilots approached, surrounding Pinkie from either side, and took another shot. Fluttershy erected walls of ice on either side, just barely protecting them. But those two wouldn’t hold out much longer.
The other pilots got their next attack ready. Then the remaining ghosts on her squad came up from behind.
“Okay! I’ve never actually done this before, but I have a plan,” said Fluttershy.
“I trust the plan! Go! Go! Go!” Pinkie shouted out.
“Okay. Okay, I can do this.”
Fluttershy nodded.
And she broke her seal.
Sour Sweet honestly had no idea what Fluttershy’s seal was. Even after a half year of research, they didn’t find a single thing.
Water had already been covering the ground, so it wasn’t something Sour noticed at first. The already three-inch deep water flooding the area swelled up enough to submerge Pinkie entirely. The water flared up, then pulled back. That was Sour Sweet’s only warning about what was to come.
She turned towards a rushing sound.
An absolutely colossal wave emerged, throwing the rain and steam aside. Sour Sweet, in her current body, was already two stories tall but that thing made her look like a mouse. And since it was summoned, it would be enchanted water. It’d carry all of the ghosts off regardless of if they possessed something or not!
Even underground wouldn’t be safe if she could get there. The wave tore through the mud and ice, uprooting at least one other ghost into its swell.
Her only option was to try and dig her claws in and bear the wave.
That didn’t even last one second as the wave slammed into her, tearing up the ground she’d clung to, smashing pieces of the battle doll off and carrying her away. She might as well have been the one possessing a teddy bear at this point!
As she turned and flailed, desperate for control, Sour Sweet tried to take stock of the others. All their battle dolls and ghosts were swept away. But Pinkie Pie had to have been hit too.
Sour Sweet found the psychic much higher up the wave. Fluttershy had fashioned Pinkie a surfboard made of ice and now Pinkie was riding the doomsday tsunami close to the top.
“Good thing I bought that skateboard!” Pinkie looked over her shoulder, Fluttershy clinging on. “Remember when I mentioned that, Fluttershy?”
“I don’t know if that makes sense,” whined Fluttershy, clinging to Pinkie, flapping about as they surged forward.
Sour Sweet kept tumbling in the battle doll. There shouldn’t be enough water for it to go on this long! She’d never seen a seal like this break before, but the wave had to crash eventually!
It did, with another jolt that smashed her battle doll even worse. The armor fell as Sour Sweet was forced out into the air. Sour realized she was at the gorge! The armor had tumbled in.
The wave crashed right into the gorge, filling it to the brim, and turning it into a river. Sour Sweet still struggled to regain control even as she soared over the new landmark.
Pinkie Pie jumped just as the wave came crashing down, the blue energy of a spirit bomb swirling around her. She spiked her hoof down into Sour Sweet’s chest, hitting the other two pilots in the process. That blow should have killed her, but no. The chains absorbed that psychic energy. They shattered in the process.
Being freed from those chains was like having a full body cast torn off of her. Sour Sweet couldn’t… she just…
As her vision blurred away, the last thing she could see was Pinkie landing in front of a pair of pegasi.
“Oh, hey Spitfire. What are you up to?”
Fluttershy looked nervously at the two slayers, Spitfire and Fleetfoot, then clung tighter to Pinkie. Why were they here?
“Woo! Woo! Woo!” Pinkie spun in place throwing spirit bomb after spirit bomb at the group of dazed ghosts carried out by the wave.
Each bomb exploded into blue light, shattering the chains of their once enemies until the entire squad was taken out. She’d gotten all of them Fluttershy could see, including the three pilots. Two of the battle dolls sank into the gorge, the third stopped just short.
But Fluttershy didn’t see Sonata.
Pinkie breathed heavily.
“Okay, there’s a lot of these ghosts.” She stood up shaking her head. “This is going to take a while.”
“Do you need to stop?” Fluttershy asked.
“Honestly? For whatever reason, I feel great! I never spirit bombed this much before in my life, but I bet I could do it all day.”
“I suppose we might as well be freeing all these ponies, too.” Fluttershy frowned at that freckled ghost who’d been piloting the giant.
The ghosts who got free simply went limp. Their eyes rolled back, or they listed to one side as they drifted slowly off in a random direction.
Spitfire took note of the head of that squad, the freckled ghost who came out of the largest armor.
“Hey!” Spitfire pointed at freckles. “You were there back when I saw this thing the first time weren’t you? Uh. Sour Sweet? Yeah! You were in the army back then.”
Sour Sweet kept coasting slowly with her eyes turned up to the cloud above
“Hello?” Spitfire waved a hoof without response. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t feel.”
“That can’t be good.” Fluttershy watched her slowly pass by.
Fluttershy remembered something Aria told her. The chains strangled your aura and left it weak. But that meant you were ridiculously easy to control.
She’d practiced doing this to help Sonata but…
Fluttershy poured the compassion she felt into the freckled ghost first.
“Fluttershy?” Freckles sprang back to life, looking at Fluttershy with mouth agape as though the specter were the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. “Oh, wow! You saved me! You’re the best! I love you so much!”
Sour Sweet flew forward, grabbing onto Fluttershy with absolute love in her heart.
“Eep!”
Just that brief moment of shock was enough to make Sour Sweet break off and hide underground. All of the once lethargic ghosts sprang to life and hid this way or that.
“Oh no! They’re a little too suggestible.” Fluttershy looked around. “But I can’t just let them all wander off. Okay!”
Fluttershy focused her compassion, flaring her aura out like Aria showed her to attract all the ghosts to her this time. First, they poked their head up from the ground, then they came running, rushing in around her. But she was ready this time.
“Fluttershy!” They shouted and grabbed onto her.
“Please don’t crowd!” Fluttershy flared her wings and held up a hoof, keeping them back.
She managed to keep from becoming the bottom of a pony pile, but just barely. They didn’t just imitate her emotions but were totally overwhelmed by them. They surrounded her, all but tearing up as they watched Fluttershy with nothing but absolute love.
“We love you Fluttershy!”
“You saved us, Fluttershy!”
Admittedly, it was a little difficult to stay scared of them when they were like this.
“Um. Pinkie Pie saved you all but um…” Fluttershy did feel a slight smile creep on her face. That made them all way too happy.
Fluttershy looked them all over. Maybe a score or so in total.
But not Sonata…
“So what are you doing here?” Pinkie asked Spitfire and Fleetfoot.
Spitfire had been watching the ghosts uneasily, with her lip bit. Pinkie snapped her out of it.
“We came here to mitigate the situation,” said Spitfire. “I have a lot more ponies hanging back, but it’s too dangerous to approach right now. If there’s any way we can help just say so.”
“Well, our main hope for beating that thing down there, um… what’s her face?” Pinkie looked towards the nexus of the battle.
“Oh!” Sour Sweet came in eagerly. “Her name is Nightmare Moon! We’re normally forbidden to speak it. But thanks to Fluttershy being the best pony ever, I can just tell you lots of stuff now.”
“Oh.” Pinkie blinked. “You know, for some reason I thought the name reveal would be more dramatic than that after all this time. Anyway!”
Pinkie turned back to Spitfire.
“Me and Fluttershy? Our mission is just to save a pony name Sonata Dusk who… I think got swept away in this river.” Pinkie lowered her head to the ground. “Yep! That’s what my psychic perception says. Maybe since you two are so fast you can help me catch her.”
“But don’t kill her,” Fluttershy pleaded. “Sonata Dusk is very important.
“Yeah! We have to save Sonata Dusk no matter what!” Sour Sweet backed her up. All the other ghosts cheered, suddenly convinced they had to save Sonata.
“Weren’t you screaming at Sonata to just die a minute ago?” Fluttershy asked.
“Huh.” Sour Sweet blinked, only just now realizing that herself. “You know you’re right. Look, I feel really weird. Maybe I just can’t have any opinions that aren’t yours right now?”
All the other ghosts nodded in agreement.
“Well um.” Fluttershy looked back at the battlefield, unsure of what to do with them.
“I will literally die for you, Fluttershy!” Sour Sweet flew out in front of her, forelegs spread wide defensively.
That was a fast turnaround.
Spitfire gave Fluttershy only a frown of acknowledgment.
“Easy!” Fleetfoot made a bow toward Pinkie. “Hop on!”
“I should probably go with them.” Fluttershy looked over at Sour Sweet. “But what am I going to do with you all?”
“Wait! Wait, Fluttershy I remembered something especially important. I fought this thing before,” said Sour Sweet. “That thing… Nightmare Moon. It has one other means of attacking us besides these massive waves of destruction I mean.”
“If Silverstorm can handle that huge disk, I’m sure she can manage whatever else will be thrown at her,” said Fluttershy. “After all this time, I don’t think there’s anything she can’t handle.”
“She’s a predead, Fluttershy. And this is an aura attack. Your friend isn’t used to dealing with those.”
“But then she should be immune?”
“Not a normal one.” Sour Sweet looked at all the other ghosts. “It’s going to knock all the rest of us flat. But you? You’re the only specter here in fighting shape! Maybe the last free one left. Whoever this is is going to need your help to get past this attack. We can do this! I’ll take you there!”
Fluttershy would have to charge at Nightmare Moon herself?!
The fear broke Sour Sweet’s determination.
“Never mind! I can’t do this!” Sour flew underground.
Fluttershy shook her head. She had to! She promised she’d never let the others down again! Remembering her training, she focused her aura to try and summon that determination.
“I changed my mind again!” Sour flew up from underground! “We can do this! But heads up, anypony with any level of psychic perception is going to get floored in a second. Except maybe you.”
Sour turned to Pinkie.
“Pinkie.” Sour Sweet turned to Pinkie Pie. “If I don’t make it back, you need to know this. Lemon Zest, another ghost who should be around here, sold part of her soul to an object called the Element of Laughter. I’m not sure why, but you seem to have gotten a fraction of the power she bought. You have to free her. And if not, find Sunny Flare, the head of the Mad Science Institute. She’ll be the only other hope of winning this.”
“It sounds like you know a lot about this,” said Pinkie.
“So does Sunny Flare. We have to go if we’re going to save Sonata, though! The rest of you fly off that way!” Sour pointed in a direction, sending her old squad flying off out of the way.
Fleetfoot took off in one direction.
Sour Sweet possessed the remaining battle doll on the other side of the new river. She grabbed Fluttershy in her enormous mouth and bounded forward, needing to take leaps to get through the now high water.
Electricity rippled out through the entire cloud that had suddenly appeared. Yet it was on top of Lightning Dust and Dash that all the lightning came raining down.
Constant thunderous explosions ripped through the air. The two pegasi were pushed to their limits just trying to dodge it all. Lemon Zest hung by in the distance, watching them and occasionally turning her eye in another direction. She was expecting somepony…
Dash didn’t dare land given how much water had suddenly swelled up to cover the ground… if you could even call it that at this point. She’d be swimming if she landed.
Zest knew she wouldn’t have a lot of firepower once they figure out her trick. So she set this all up before depowering. In this state, Dash couldn’t get close.
She tried throwing a few of those dancing swords at Zest but they alone weren’t enough to strike her down.
“Hey, you ain’t bad at dodging yourself!” Lightning Dust sidestepped another blast of lightning. “I don’t know what Fleetfoot was complaining about.”
Dash’s claw blade was doing much of the work. Dodging lightning? It was pretty easy now. Was this what it felt like to be like Dust?
“Hey! How come they never chose you for SCT?” Dust asked. “You would have been fun to have over there.”
Dash knew what that was and why they didn’t choose her. Only the most incredibly exceptional were recruited into ‘special combat training’ as foals.
“Now’s not a good time!”
“Pff! Look at you. All serious. Well got any ideas?”
“Yes. Look, we’ll…”
Something hit Lightning Dust hard. She puffed out her cheeks, then puked down into the water below.
“What the?!”
Already Dust’s eyes were rolling into the back of her head. Her body twitched and she fell.
Dash swooped down and grabbed her. What was this? A seizure?
Another cloud began rolling in from the side… a black one this time.