//------------------------------// // Episode 188: The Phoenix and the Hollow // Story: Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls // by thatguyvex //------------------------------// Episode 188: The Phoenix and the Hollow There was a hot mixture of fear, adrenaline, and shame burning inside Fenice as she and Di Roy tried to help her injured sister along the uneven sands of Las Noches’ interior. Roka was trying her best to keep moving her feet, but the pain was written across her face in deep lines, her eyes blurry as Roka tried to keep her threads working inside the terrible wound Pharynx had dealt to her. Whereas moving fast would have been easy for the likes of Fenice or Di Roy, Roka’s injury slowed them to a staggering walk. They couldn’t risk picking her up and using Sonido or Fullbringer movement, for it would likely make Roka’s injury far worse. Meanwhile Gaw faced Pharynx alone, his Resurreccion form looming over even the tall, thirty foot dinosaur Arrancar. Gaw, undaunted, pulled her jaws back in a rumbling growl, legs tensing. She jumped into the air and then blurred out of view with a high-speed Sonido that sent her zipping around Pharynx, her flickering motions circling him in an attempt to confuse his senses. Pharynx reacted with a deep, booming belly laugh as he thrust out his right pincer arm and stabbed right at Gaw, tracking her movements quite readily. She growled again, having anticipated this, and used her forearm blades to block the blow as best she could, feeling the rough impact on both arms. However she used her proximity to his arm to wrap her tail around the base of his pincer and then used that to keep herself attached as she gripped the pincer with her clawed hands and feet and proceeded to start savaging the limb. Her teeth and claws glowed red with Hollow power as she tried to rip and bite through the hardened carapace, and with her raw savagery managed to rend fissures in the smooth white pincer. “Hmph, fierce, but foolish!” Pharynx said with a grunt as he proceeded to raise his pincer up and then bring it down with such speed and force it generated multiple sonic booms as he slammed Gaw straight into the ground. This loosened her grip and left her laying, groaning in a crater as Pharynx then used one of his pointed, insectile legs to try and stab her. Gaw just barely managed to get her wits gathered enough to see this coming and scramble aside, but she then fell victim to Pharynx’s other pincer arm, which swung down with air rending force and caught her in the side. Gaw went sprawling, only barely rolling to her feet, still growling despite the cracks now appearing in her own armor and her labored breathing. That said, she was far from out, and let out a roar at Pharynx that shook the air. Fenice could get a good gauge on both of their respective spiritual pressures, and it hardly took an expert to tell that Pharynx was the stronger of the two. Not to the point that the situation was hopeless. Gaw could still hurt Pharynx, as long as she could get a solid enough shot in. But the advantage was clearly his. Right now Gaw was buying time, more than anything else, for the rest of them to escape. Which only added to Fenice’s sense of helplessness and shame. The claymore in her hand dripped with magma, heating up in response to her feelings. As far back as her mind allowed her to remember, the medallion she wore had been her beacon of pride. Proof of a mother she barely remembered. The source of a power she had always wanted to use to safeguard the family that she found in this otherwise dead, dismal realm. Her father, her siblings, they were everything to her... a second chance to protect what she couldn’t as a weak, lost child. Only it felt like nothing was different. Roka was bleeding out. Father had lost most of his power, and might leave them at any time for his real family in the human world. Even Adagio, Di Roy and Gaw, whom Fenice was starting to feel a sense of friendship with, might be killed at any time. And she couldn’t do anything about it. Pharynx saw them running, and as Gaw fired a Cero at him from her mouth, he used his right hand pincer to cut into the beam, despite it singing his armor. “Nobody gets to just walk away.” While blocking the Cero, he raised his other pincer and opened the claws wide. Green energy crackled in a growing circle of writhing emerald power that formed around the pincer. He then launched this circle into the air above him, where it hovered about three hundred feet up and pulsated several times before rapidly expanding. In mere seconds this ring of spirit energy formed a cylinder-like cage of power that slammed down upon the area, trapping all within. The interior of the cage was laced with hundreds of sharp, mandible-shaped protrusions that turned the area into a deadly, spiked cage. Di Roy, Fenice, and Roka had to pull up short, the wall of the cage having formed just a few short paces in front of them. “Crapcrapcrap!” Di Roy growled, “This guy is taking his job way too damn seriously!” He used his free hand that wasn’t supporting Roka to aim at the cage wall. Red energy shuddered around his fist and he fired a Bala at the wall, but the bullet of crimson Hollow power bounced off without leaving so much as a mark. “I...I can probably... with my threads,” Roka said weakly, and Di Roy looked at her sharply. “Roka, you’re busy keeping  your insides inside at the moment! You try to open this cage up, and you’ll bleed out.” “If I don’t... we all die anyway...” Roka said with a sad smile, “At least this way... some of you might escape.” Fenice was breathing heavily, hearing the echoing booms of Gaw's continued fight with Pharynx in the background, dust clouds kicking up as the two traded physical blows at high speed. She heard Di Roy protesting, arguing with Roka’s calm, steadfast voice, but Fenice wasn’t really hearing the words. She was only hearing a ringing in her ears, her heartbeat a distant pounding. She felt like she was falling... falling backwards to... ---------- Canterlot City, many years ago... “Mama, why’d you give me and big brother these thingies? They’re weird,” she said to her mother, who was sitting behind the counter of their bookstore, reading like always. She always thought her mom was pretty, with such nice red hair and orange skin, like a living sunset. Maybe that’s why her mom named her that? Her mom smiled at her around the corners of her book and put a hand on her head, then pointed at the medallion she wore, just like her big brother’s, “I know it might seem weird to you now, honey. One day you’ll understand, when you get big enough.” “Like Sunburst!? He’s getting really big, and he doesn’t want to play with me as much anymore,” she said, feeling the kind of simple, intense sadness that was natural for young children still trying to understand the world. She was almost four years old. She kept holding her medallion, feeling its weight. She kind of liked it, but didn’t understand why her mom insisted she always wear it. “Yes, Sunset, your brother is getting older, but that just means he’s meeting a lot of new friends. He still loves you and will play with you, but you’ll need to start making friends of your own as well.” “I don’t wanna! I like it here. Outside is scary,” she said. She didn’t really like going outside the bookstore or their cozy apartment above it. Too many people, always staring at her. “I know, honey, but in a couple of years you’ll be old enough to start pre-school. Just remember, as long as you keep your medallion with you, your mamma can always keep an eye on you and make sure you’re safe.” Her mother smiled in that odd way that little Sunset knew meant she was talking about the ‘secret stuff’ that happened in her mother’s workshop. The stuff with the weird circles drawn on the floor and chanting. Dad did it too, but he was always gone on ‘business trips’ so Sunset didn’t see him much and sometimes couldn’t remember what he looked like.  The bell above the bookshop door rang and she heard her brother’s voice. “Hey mom, hey Sunset! Guess what? I made a really cool friend today!”  Sunset turned to see her brother entering the bookstore with a girl next to him, a girl his age, and whom Sunset thought looked far too pretty to be hanging out with her brother. The girl smiled, giving them a nervous wave. “Hi, um, I’m Starlight Glimmer. Sunburst has been telling me all about you guys at school...” Things blurred, time shifted, the memories continued like chips of glass falling from a broken mirror, one by one. She was older, dealing with the irritations of school and puberty. And Sunburst was gone. An accident involving a “gas leak” or something. She’d been too young to understand, and even as a teenager, she didn’t quite grasp what had happened to her brother. Or why that girl he’d always been hanging out with, Starlight, had up and vanished at the same time. But she’d grown, and moved past it, and now was just doing her best to deal with life.  She was in the shop now, hearing the sounds of an argument in the apartment above. Dad had come back from one of those mysterious ‘business trips’ and now he and mom were having a fight about something. About what, Sunset didn’t know. Her father was almost never around, always traveling to some far flung part of the world for his work as a photographer. As always the medallion sat around her neck, its weight a comforting presence, but also a reminder of the oddities of her family.  Did her mother really practice magic? Sunset knew about the workshop, but by now just assumed her mom was a weird, old-school wicca sort. There wasn’t any real magic happening, her mom was just eccentric.  ...Right? What were they arguing about, up there? Sunset’s curiosity got the better of her, and she locked the shop up and turned around the “Out to Lunch” sign, then she sneaked upstairs. She crept towards the door to the living room on the apartment's second floor, now hearing her parent’s voices more clearly. “I know you did what you thought was right, but it’s still dangerous to have brought her here. This is painting a target on our backs not just from Zero Division, but the Beast Realm as well.” That was her mother’s voice. A second later she heard her father’s responding, a rich baritone she had so rarely heard in her life. “I am aware of that, Flare. What else could I do? Jormungandr was turning her into some kind of screwed up trigger for his own plans. It was making me sick to watch. I had to bust her out!” “I know, love, I know. I never should have even considered making common cause with that deranged serpent, but we’re short of any possible allies. The children and I may be all that’s left of the Star Family. Now you bring this child to our home, our secret home. What are we to do with her?” Sunset had crept closer to the door, and dared to peek inside. She could see a sliver of the living room, and her mother pacing, dark orange red hair frazzled. Stellar Flare was holding her chin in deep thought, eyes darting to a form on the couch wrapped in a blanket. Sunset saw what looked like the head of a young girl, with dark green hair, but it was hard to see any other details. Meanwhile her father came into view, facing Stellar Flare. He was a broad shouldered man of dark red skin and long, wild black hair, muscled like a bodybuilder. “We look after her is what we do, Flare. She doesn’t even remember who she is, and Jormungandr has screwed with her mind and soul both. You’re the matron of the Star Family, dammit! I’ve seen what you can do with Kido! Those cheap swords your family made are great and all, but this girl needs real help.” Stellar Flare’s eyes narrowed a little, but only a little before she sighed, “First of all, the Phantom Blades are not ‘cheap’, Ravana. They were meant to be our secret weapon against the Zero Division.” “Fat lot of good they did,” Ravana said, crossing his arms, “Your rebellion got crushed and all but two of your precious blades lost. Still can’t believe you hid them in those trinkets you gave our kids.” “They are our children’s inheritance and perhaps the only things that will keep them safe in the future,” Stellar Flare stated plainly, then shook her head and looked at the girl unconscious on the couch, “If we’d been able to make more, before the Zero Division discovered our plans, things would have been different. Now all we can do is hide, and try to prepare alternatives. As for... this one here. If she’s to stay with us, we’ll need a cover story to tell Sunset. Also, are you sure you can control her? The things Jormungandr did to her...” Sunset’s father nodded his head, eyes fierce, “She trusts me. She let me bust her out of Jormungandr’s realm, after all.” “Fine, then. Guess I’ll work out a name for her and some kind of cover identity. Some orphan kid you found during your work in a war zone somewhere and felt obligated to adopt or something.” Ravana smiled, “Thanks, Flare.” Sunset had no idea what to think about what she was hearing. What in the world were her parents even talking about? It all sounded like some weird, fantasy role-player’s live action script or something. Had her dad kidnapped some child from somewhere? The hell was happening?  And she wasn’t given very long to contemplate the matter. It was less than two weeks after the girl’s mysterious arrival that Sunset’s world crumbled into fire and smoke. In that time ‘Wallflower’ spoke not a word, and seemed to Sunset like little more than an empty doll, despite the way her mother started to spend with her. But then... that night arrived... The flames were consuming the building. The smoke and heat was unbearable, and Sunset, having woken up in the middle of the night to this horror, found the bottom floor already entirely ablaze. However what was worse was that there were holes in the apartment walls and the living room was completely destroyed, as if a bomb had gone off! There was a terrible roaring sound coming from somewhere outside, and Sunset screamed for her mom or dad, but didn’t know where they were. She stumbled up the stairs towards the building’s roof, coughing through the smoke as her eyes blurred with tears. Finally breaking out into the cold night air upon the roof, she stumbled a few steps and fell to her knees. What was happening? She could feel the heat rising, the flames crawling up the building. The roof wouldn’t be safe for long! Suddenly she heard an impact nearby, and felt a strange pressure on her chest, something strong, yet somehow familiar. She looked up and blinked, eyes widening. A man was kneeling on the ground in front of her, one familiar, yet very different. Her father, Ravana, still had his red skin, but it now glowed with an aura of visible red energy and was covered in black tattoos. He had six arms, not two, thick as tree trunks. In two of them he carried a vast, curved blade of dark and jagged iron, while in his other hands he cradled a strange wooden instrument Sunset didn’t recognize. There was a small hole in his chest, but one that didn’t bleed, but just contained a dark void, and upon his jawline was a thick ridge of bone, like the fragments of a skull mask. When he noticed her, he managed a weak smile. He was bleeding from multiple deep gashes on his body, blood dripping to the roof. “Hah... hey, kiddo. Guess this isn’t a good time to tell you that your old man isn’t a war photographer?” “What...what the... dad!?”  Before her father could respond, he seemed to move in a blinding motion of speed, and Sunset couldn’t even grasp that something, or someone else had flown down at him from above. There was a clash of sparks and concussive force that left Sunset clutching her medallion and hunkering down. The medallion felt warm in her hand, almost hotter than the rising flames below. It pulsated, almost like a heartbeat. When she looked up again, her father was standing, sweat soaked and bloody, barring his massive blade at a... woman? She seemed like a fairly normal, unimpressive looking woman with teal skin and mint green hair, holding a katana loosely in one hand. Who the hell...? The woman glanced at Sunset, and it made Sunset’s heart want to freeze up. “So this is your other kid, Ravana? Still can’t imagine how you and Stellar Flare pulled that off. You couldn’t have used gigai’s for it.” Ravana smirked, “Let’s just say don’t underestimate the Star Family’s skills in both Kido and alchemy. She found a way to ensure we could have offspring, although it took some doing. Heh, not that I had any reason to complain about all of the ‘doing’.” “Shame I can’t let her live through the night,” the woman said with a sly chuckle, “Although I got to wonder who that girl she took with her was? Didn’t recognize her.” “Just an adopted orphan, Medley, nothing more,” Ravana said, and the other woman took her own turn to smirk at him, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, sure, an ‘adopted orphan’ so important that even after I mortally wounded her, Stellar still managed to take the girl and run off. Well, whatever, my orders are just to wipe out what’s left of the Star Family. Glory didn’t mention anything about any extras. As for you, my orders don’t specify killing you either, Ravana, but you know how Glory feels about Hollows.” “L-leave my dad alone!” Sunset found herself shouting, standing up as the pulsating heat in her medallion increased. There was a burst of flame and a rising heat as Sunset felt something inside her chest start burning. In a flash of bright orange light, she found herself suddenly holding a longsword in her hands. Its blade was mostly made of flickering orange flame, but its core was like a rod of solid magma, leading to a hilt and cross guard of similar molten liquid that she was somehow holding without being burned. Both her father and the woman, Medley, turned to look at her. “Well... isn’t that interesting?” Medley said, “Just like Discord’s experiments. Human, but with Hollow spiritual energy. I guess an Arrancar hybrid soul would be able to pull off the same thing, even while still living in a human body.” Sunset had no idea what was going on, or why she suddenly had this magma sword in her hand... but she didn’t really care. She’d protect her family! She began to charge at this woman, Medley, but even as she started to move she felt an immense pressure push down on her and she all but dropped to her knees. “You know, it’s harder to let my reiatsu out just enough to do that without breaking you completely, kid,” Medley said, then her body seemed to vanish as Ravana catapulted through the spot she was standing in, his giant sword carving the air apart around where Medley had stood. Half of the building started to collapse from the impact, and Ravana leaped back to stand in front of Sunset. She felt one of his powerful arms wrap around her protectively, and felt a new pressure, something from him. It was warm, comforting, and helped her breath as the other pressure from Medley was pushed back. “Dad...what’s happening... Where's mom?” Sunset hated that she was crying. She never liked feeling weak and scared, and she clutched the blade of fire and magma in her hand, even if she couldn’t seem to make any real use of it. Her father patted her head as he stood her up. “She had to go, and take Wallflower away...” he said, and there was a deep sadness etched on his features, “The way she was wounded, I don’t know if...” There was a roaring sound, a howl from above, and Sunset saw creatures flying around in the sky. Creatures with masks covering bodies of various, horrific forms. What were they? Ravana looked up at them and frowned. “Great. All this reiatsu is attracting the riff raff. Dammit, that means Soul Reapers will be coming soon.” “Quite right,” said Medley, who was suddenly sitting on top of the edge of the roof, bouncing her katana over her shoulder, “Not good news for you, Ravana. Or your daughter. Tell you what, I’ll make you a little deal, because I’m feeling capricious. Come with me somewhere more private where we can finish our little duel alone. I’ll... refrain from ending your daughter’s life, but on the condition you kick her through a Garganta to Hueco Mundo.” Hueco Mundo? Sunset had no idea what that was. Ravana growled, holding her protectively. “Are you mad? She’ll die there!” “Maybe, maybe not,” Medley said with a shrug, then a simple, sharp smile as her eyes stared into Ravana’s with an unreadable, flat look, “She’s part Arrancar, so perhaps she’ll thrive there. Or get eaten. Point is, if you keep her here, you won’t be able to protect her. Either I’ll get her, or she’ll be discovered when one of the local Soul Reapers gets here. What do you think her odds will be, then?” “Why offer this deal at all?” Ravana said, eyes narrowing, “What are you after, Medley?” “Like I said, I’m feeling capricious. Glory wants the Star Family gone, but she didn’t specify how I have to go about it. I guess you could say I don’t always appreciate being her personal maid when it comes to these affairs, so this is my way of sticking it to my sister a little bit. So let the last prodigal daughter of the Star Family get exiled to Hueco Mundo by her own father. Maybe she’ll die. Maybe she’ll hate you. Maybe she’ll dedicate herself to revenge. Maybe she’ll just block all this trauma from her memory. Whatever the result, it’ll probably make things less boring, won’t it?”   Medley waggled her fingers, “But I sense some Soul Reapers inbound, so you don’t have a lot of time to decide, Ravana. Tick tock, tick tock. All these small fry Hollows might slow them down a bit, but not for long. Decide fast.” “Dad...?” Sunset said, as her father turned to her and kneeled down. He pretty  much had to, given how much he towered over her in this form. She still couldn’t grasp what was happening or why. It all made her head hurt, like a building pressure behind her skull. He looked at her with kind, proud eyes, and ruffled her hair. “There’s so much I should have told you, kiddo. Now we’re out of time. You’re going to need to be strong, now, Sunset. I have to send you somewhere far away, and dangerous, but it means this woman won’t hurt you. When you get there, look for the giant fortress. If you can find it, you might survive, if you can show strength to those that dwell there.” “I don’t understand! Dad, what is this all about!?” Sunset cried, and he just shook his head. Behind Sunset, an opening appeared in the very air. A dark hole of utter void, opening like uneven teeth in some cavernous mouth. Sunset stared at it in shock, and then felt even more surprised as her father lifted her and pushed her towards it.  “Remember, Sunset, the fortress. Find it, and do whatever you must to survive!” “Dad! Wait!” Sunset shouted, frightened, both for him, and of the utter unknown of the portal she was being pushed through. She saw a hole open in the void on the other side, leading to some kind of pale, nighttime desert. Her father’s strength was able to launch her right towards it, and the last she saw of him was a sad smile as he turned around to face the woman, Medley, as the portal closed behind him. She remembered the cold impact upon the sands. The shock, the terror, and utter confusion of those first few minutes in Hueco Mundo. She stood there upon a bone white sand dune, under a starless black sky with a single, huge crescent moon, and stared around in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. None of it made any sense. Her father wasn’t human? Her mother was... what? What even was the Star Family? Was her mother dead? Dying? Why did she run away with that Wallflower girl? Why? Why? Why? Why? Sunset screamed, clutching the blade of magma to her chest, the only warmth to be had in this place. After a long hour or two of sobbing and trying to get herself under control, she looked up into the distance. Far away, on the dark horizon, there was the pale image of some vast, strange fortress. Her father’s words echoed dulling her already traumatized mind, and she started walking towards it. All the while, her mind couldn’t fully accept all that had happened. She hurt, inside and out. She didn’t want to think about any of it. Or remember any of it.  The girl’s first real memories of Hueco Mundo must have been a day or two later, feeling the severe effects of dehydration as she stumbled to the front of Las Noches. All other memories were repressed, save for fragments of a life with a mother, a long dead brother, and a... father? Did she have one? A family and life from another time? No, too painful. She was here now. She had to survive, somehow.  And she did. She found a new family. A new father. A family she’d fight, kill, and die to protect. The name ‘Sunset Shimmer’ had ceased to mean much beyond a half remembered dream of an old life. Now she was... ---------- “Fenice?” Hearing her sister’s voice, Fenice looked to Roka, and saw the deep echo of worry in Roka’s eyes despite the pain on her face from trying to endure her wound. Fenice realized she must have briefly blacked out as her mind dredged up memories long repressed. Once again, the family she had was under threat, only this time... she hoped she was stronger. She looked at the claymore in her right hand, the completed Fullbring that manifested its first form from the medallion her mother gave her all those years ago. And my parents from back then said something about a ‘Phantom Blade’, hidden inside the medallion? What was that referring to? What was the Star Family? She didn’t know, but in that moment she understood that the barrier Pharynx had created needed to be broken, and that the one most likely to be able to do so was Gaw with her burrowing ability. So someone had to go keep Pharynx busy to free Gaw up to do that. Fenice knew what she had to do, and she looked at her sister and Di Roy with a look far more calm and focused than what she was feeling. “Di Roy, I’m going to tag in with Gaw. Get her to rip open a hole in this cage, then get out of here as fast as you can with my sister.” “Wait, hold on, you think you can take He-Mad the Destroyer over there!?” Di Roy croaked, waving an arm towards Pharynx, who by now had Gaw fighting on the defensive, slamming her around as she tried her best to block hammering blows from his pincers.  “I’ll manage,” Fenice said, and turned to go, only halting briefly as she felt Roka’s hand weakly grasp the dark robes Fenice worked.  “Please... be careful.” “...I will.” She moved, pulling upon the full extent of her Fullbring powers to launch herself across the sands towards where Gaw and Pharynx fought. Gaw was putting up a valiant resistance. It seemed no matter how many times Pharynx slammed her to the ground, blasted her with piercing green Balas from his pincers, or hammered her with relentless blow after blow, Gaw was utterly refusing to fall. She blocked with her claw blades, rolled with each attack, and viscously retaliated with fang and claw alike. She even fired multiple, concentrated projectiles of conical-shaped red Hollow power, her own unique variation on Bala, to try and pierce Pharynx’s armor. However the overall exchange between them was showing the telling difference in power. Pharynx bore several wounds, but by comparison Gaw was battered and bloody, her armored body cracked and seeping blood all over the sands beneath her clawed feet. “Your endurance is remarkable,” Pharynx said in grudging praise, “Indeed I don’t doubt you could defeat the likes of Gilda and claim a rightful place among the Espada. I don’t relish killing off talented individuals, but this ends here, servant of Adagio.” He pulled back a pincer in preparation to ram it forward against a weakened Gaw, who was struggling now to stay on her feet after withstanding so much concentrated punishment. It was then, however, that Fenice soared in, making a mighty final leap across the last distance to Gaw’s position. She swung her claymore in a sweeping arc, and boiled the sands beneath her as she created a scything wave of magma to rise up and slash into Pharynx’s side. He grunted slightly as the molten rock and sand washed over his insectile legs and carapace, and he swung his pincer at the wave instead of Gaw, using air pressure alone to disperse a great chunk of magma in a shower of hot droplets. Landing in front of Gaw, Fenice looked back at the wounded Arrancar, “Gaw, tag out! I’ll take this guy. You go tear a hole open in the cage for you, Di Roy, and my sis to slip out.” Gaw looked at her, eyes twitching in dissatisfaction. She growled, eyeing Pharynx, “I’m not done fighting.” “Don’t be stubborn about this, dammit! You’re the only one who can rip a hole in this stupid energy cage! Now get going! This isn’t up for debate!” Gaw growled again, a deep rumble in her throat that was a raw combination of frustration, anger, and reluctant acceptance of the situation. Her tail lashed and slammed the ground as she snorted at Fenice, “If you die, I will be so mad at you, dumb human girl!” Without waiting for Fenice to respond, Gaw launched herself out of there with Sonido, blurring out of view as she rushed to go to Di Roy and Roka’s side. This left Fenice to stand in Phayrnx’s looming shadow as he brushed off the last of her magma and glared down at her, a massive giant facing one lone human that was now daring to challenge him. “One sacrifice was traded for another. It doesn’t make a difference to me. I can kill you even faster than Gaw. At least she is sturdy enough to withstand some pain. You’re just a fragile human, with a toy lava sword that might do for weaker Hollows, but lacks real power.” “Maybe...” Fenice said, holding her claymore up in front of her, feeling the pulsation of its heat, matching her anger, her fear, her long buried anguish, but most of all a resolute desire to never lose another family. Somewhere deep inside her, the core of Hollow power that had given shape to her Fullbring began to pulse a well, rising as if Hueco Mundo itself was calling to it. “Or maybe I’ll surprise you.” “Hmph, doubtful, but one can hope, I suppose,” Pharynx said, then struck like a bolt of thunder, his left pincer slashing down with hurricane force.  She rocketed above it, shooting out jets of highly pressurized magma from her claymore to send her flying above the blow. Then in mid-air she turned and spun herself into a flying chop, still ejecting magma from her blade to increase her speed and force while heating up her sword’s edge to a bright, melting orange. She felt her blow impact Pharynx’s shoulder, burning and scraping along the insanely tough exterior of his Heirro as she dragged her blade down his body. He grunted and laughed at the same time, now coming at her from the left with his other pincer, even faster than before. She braced herself on her sword, its width akin to a shield as she felt the pincer impact. It jarred her and sent her flying, but she somersaulted in the air and reoriented herself, thrusting the tip of her blade towards the ground. A powerful jet of lava shot out and hit the sands, and Fenice melted that sand and pulled the molten glass into her lava stream, adding to its size and intensity as she then slashed upwards and sent the whole focused jet of spiritually enhanced magma flying towards Pharynx. In response he raised a pincer and opened the claws, forming a ring of green energy akin to the one he used to make the giant cage entrapping everyone. Only this time he used it to create a smaller cage, like a floating tube of green light that caught her beam of magma and redirected it! Fenice blinked, a tad taken off guard he could do something so fine tuned with his power. Pharynx had struck her as a pure muscle head, but that was clearly a mistake. Seeing her look, he smirked and opened his other pincer, forming another ring of green spiritual power. This one he launched at her, and Fenice had only a split second to decide how to defend herself. Knowing now that he could create cages of varying shapes and sizes, she knew better than to just dodge, because he might easily entrap her if she wasn’t fast enough. So instead she sliced her blade in front of her and generated a wide sheet of magma, like a brief waterfall that obscured her from sight. Only then did she launch herself upward, stepping off of the air with Fullbring to get height above Pharynx. She saw a burst of green light as a cylindrical cage shot through her magma screen right where she’d been, almost catching her despite her obscuring herself. She threw herself across the air above Pharynx, moving as fast as her Fullbring could make her as she flew down behind him and reversed course. She now charged at the back of his chest with her claymore almost held like a lance in front of her as she blasted magma out of the hilt to increase her speed and force like a rocket, while simultaneously heating the blade to a blinding white hotness. Once more Pharynx demonstrated that his immense bulk did nothing to slow his movements, careening his right arm around with shocking speed and force so the closed pincers got right in the path of Fenice’s charge. The white hot blade scraped along the hardened white carapace of the pincer, the extreme heat and spiritual energy coating the blade managing to score a darkened mark that actually drew a bit of blood and made Pharynx flinch as Fenice rode her attack across the top of the pincer and launched herself up his arm. She ran along his bulging muscles, extending a river of lava behind her as she leaped towards his head and slashed out, flinging the stream of molten liquid at the part of his visor that still left his eyes exposed. Grunting in annoyance, Pharynx raised his arm to shield his vulnerable eyes, and Fenice used this opening to then launch herself downward, landing on the ground between his six insectile legs. Jamming her claymore into the sandy ground beneath her, she poured her power into it, and soon a wide, pool shaped area around her and Pharynx became a field of bubbling magma as sand melted and Fenice poured out her own lava to add to the sinking caldera. The magma sizzled around his legs, but Pharynx just scoffed and jumped upwards out of the pit, “You’re trying, I’ll give you that much.” He landed sideways on the wall of his own energy cage, like some giant spider upon a glowing web of green. Fenice remained in her magma pool, not burned by it, and instead doing her best to create more as she melted more sand to add to her arsenal of burning hot liquid. She took a glance to see how the others were doing. Gaw had reached Di Roy and Roka, and was now using her bladed claw arms to rip and tear at the cage wall, surrounding her blade tips with that conical red energy that was so good at piercing through things. Good, at least she was buying them time. She’d kept one eye on Pharynx, and hence saw as much felt him make his move as he skittered along the wall of his energy cage. The spiky protrusion that faced inward from the cage wall didn’t harm him, but as he passed over them Fenice saw that they glowed brightly, and she gulped as she realized these things weren’t just nasty decorations... They were weapons! Like missiles of energy, these spikes started shooting out at her! In defense, she spun her claymore above her head and in response the magma pool around her rose and spun like a whirlpool. The green bolts of energy impacted with the magma whirlpool, blasting chunks of it apart, and some penetrating through, but Fenice was already flying up by the time the spikes of energy reached where she was.  Pharynx had anticipated this, however, and spat out a vicious laugh as he propelled himself off the cage wall and came right at her with both pincer arms crossed in front of him. Fenice did her best to block with her sword, and felt the twin, X-shaped chop of his pincers on both the blade and her body, the impact cracking the sound barrier as she was thrown right towards the opposite cage wall! She saw herself flying right towards the energy spikes still on the wall, and it took all of her concentration to create a softening wall of magma to erupt from her claymore and splatter upon the cage, forming enough of a cushion for her that when she impacted, she wasn’t impaled. Instead she stood unsteadily on a bubbling pool of magma on the cage wall, and tried not to cough up blood. The impact of Pharynx’s attack had done a number on her human body, and she was pretty sure she’d just broken a rib or two. She pushed back the pain and jumped back into the fray, swinging her sword to control and direct her magma and add more to it as she flung the pool at Pharynx. “Tch, I’ve already demonstrated how ineffective your lava is, little girl, so I don’t see-” Suddenly Fenice condensed the pool into one large sphere of magma, and then pulled all of the heat out of it all at once. The ball cooled instantly into a giant sphere of stone that smashed into Pharynx’s head in a shower of cooled molten rock. She knew this wouldn’t inflict much damage, but it would ring his bell and possibly daze him for a second. Enough for her to close the gap once more! Zipping across the air as swiftly as her Fullbring could launch her, she took all the heat she’d sucked out of the magma and focused it into her claymore, turning it white hot once more. She then jetted highly pressurized streams of lava from her blade to add momentum to a spinning, overhanded slash that she aimed right for Pharynx’s head! Indeed dazed, he was a tad slow in pulling himself back. Fenice didn’t quite land a solid blow right on his dome, but her blade did dig through the edge of his visor and sliced in a sizzling heat across his left eye. “ARRGH! You bitch!” Pharynx roared as his left eye burst and he shook his head in pain. Fenice’s sense of triumph was a tad short lived as she’d used up so much spirit energy empowering her blade with so much heat that she was slow herself in dodging his retaliatory strike, a pincer blow that ended up smashing her bodily to the ground with enough force to make her bounce and cough up a spray of blood.  Staggered, and struggling to try and stand, Fenice saw Pharynx back up a few skittering steps and shake his head as if trying to clear the pain itself from his burnt out eye. His remaining good eye glared at her, and his reiatsu shot up to a dangerously potent level as the ground began to shake beneath them. “That hurt. Congratulations on actually being one of the few to strike such a blow on me. Now, enjoy your reward.” He opened both pincers and aimed his arms at her like cannons, which was an apt comparison considering the build up of swirling green energy forming between both pincers as he prepared to unleash what looked to be a double Cero at her using his full power. Even Fenice wasn’t so cocky as to think there was going to be much left of her if she took this attack head on, but she was hurt enough that moving fast to dodge was nearly out of the question. And yet despite that a part of her very soul felt... excited! More and more there was a pulsation of resonating heat inside her chest, something she could feel being echoed in the very air and sands around her. She had spent much of her life since being adopted by Lament and joining her found family being isolated from conflict. It was only after spending time with Adagio alongside her sister Roka that Fenice started partaking in any real fights or dangerous situations. This particular moment was her first time really going all out against a Hollow as powerful as Pharynx, and it was as if something in her soul was responding to the conflict itself. On top of that, she could feel her frustration at her lack of strength, especially after witnessing Sunset Shimmer fight Tirek, only adding fuel to this feeling of need inside her to fight. It almost felt like she was born for it, and was just now waking up to the fact. So even if it seemed impossible to survive what was coming, Fenice stood, and smiled even as blood trickled from her mouth. She raised her sword, and in her mind she could see two father’s looking over her shoulder. Lament, who had taken her in and given her a new family. And the one whom she’d suppressed her memory of but now understood had also helped give her a second chance at life; Ravana, an Arrancar.  The blood and will of an Arrancar warrior ran through her soul as much as her body, and Fenice let that surging heat guide her as she stepped towards Pharynx and his oncoming attack, rather than seek to flee from it. He saw her do this, and chuckled, “Brave, if nothing else. I can respect that.” With thunderous bursts of sound and lime green light the dual Ceros fired from his open pincers, the twin beams cascading together in a flood of power that rushed straight towards Fenice. She didn’t flinch away from the onrush of lethal energy, and instead let out a deep, defiant shout from her gut as she gathered up all of her remaining spiritual strength and shunted it into her claymore. Magma swirled forth from the blade and coalesced around it until she’d effectively formed a pulsating, bubbling sword of lava four times the size of the original claymore. As the dual Ceros reached her, she swung that sword down as hard as she could against the emerald tide of destruction. She felt the impact down to the marrow of her bones, her giant lava sword barely halting the oncoming torrent of power, which pushed against her like she was trying to hold back the weight of a mountain. Her feet scraped along the sands, her body straining and bleeding as for a few seconds she stood against the tide of the dual Ceros like a lone plank of wood being blasted by a firehose. Soon enough, she could feel her reiatsu being overcome, the giant magma sword starting to crack as Pharynx’s incredible dual Ceros ate away at it. Yet Fenice refused to give in to despair or accept giving up a single inch. She planted her feet and growled like a feral beast, ripping and digging into her own soul for power... any power she could dredge up from the depths. From that place inside her that kept pulsating in tune with the very air of Hueco Mundo. And not just one, but two things responded to the desperate cry of her soul for power. Power like she’d seen Sunset Shimmer wield. Power to safeguard those dear to her, and face the strange and painful truths of her past. First was a dark surge of strength that welled up from the core of her spirit. It was the same place the power of her Fullbring stemmed from, something fundamentally Hollow, but this was a far more pure expression of it than the Fullbring. This was primal and thick with the inherent negatively charged power of Hollow-kind, and it burned through Fenice’s body like the very magma she controlled as her power. Like some long hidden reservoir, a dam was breaking inside her and flooding her body with Hollow spirit energy. It was a rush of both pain and exhilarating adrenaline, as if her body was trying to accommodate something not really meant to be contained in a human’s flesh. Her skin darkened, growing a darker reddish orange. Her hair, identical to Sunset Shimmer’s, now gained streaks of dark red and grew in length down her back. And speaking of her back, there was a painful, wet tearing sensation that Fenice barely noticed as a single wing of skeletal bone spread from her right shoulder blade, and began to drip and pulsate with streams of magma. The veins on her hands and arms throbbed with power, glowing orange. Then, on her face, white particles of reishi began to coalesce into a thick swirl of flame shaped bone around her left eye, like the fragment of a Hollow mask.  Suddenly her blade of lava, still cracking under the pressure from Pharynx’s Ceros, glowed bright red as this Hollow spirit energy rushed from Fenice’s body and into the Fullbring, making it vibrate with power as a beam of red and orange energy blasted out of it. This briefly pushed back Pharynx’s Ceros before they detonated alongside Fenice’s beam, creating a massive pillar-like explosion that shook the ground throughout Las Noches. There likely wasn’t a person in the fortress that hadn’t felt it, or the clashing reiatsu of two Espada-level combatants duking it out. In particular, Tirek, overseeing a very specific map of a certain land of ponies in his personal war chambers, looked up at the sensation of reiatsu. Reiatsu that was familiar to him from a time long, long ago. “Ravana?” On the battlefield Pharynx was blinking with confusion. Fortunately his cage was still intact, but he could sense that Gaw woman was nearly done ripping open a hole in it. However that seemed a secondary concern to what had just happened. He’d sensed a massive spike in Hollow reiatsu from that girl, Fenice, just now, and he could have sworn that what she’d fired out of her sword had been... “Was that a damn Cero?” While the dust of the explosion was clearing, he didn’t need to see through the veil of smoke to know Fenice still lived, for he could sense her spiritual pressure. It was different than before, thick with Hollow power. But there was something else, now, too. A strange resonance of spirit energy he didn’t recognize at all.  Fenice was breathing hard. Not so much from her injuries, although those still hurt quite a lot. Instead she was just trying to adjust to and contain the wild surge of Hollow power inside her, which was running a little wild. Also, she noticed her claymore of magma had all but shattered in the explosion. She was still holding the hilt and a shard of broken blade attached to it, but that was it. She could probably reform it easily enough, but that thought was barely in her mind because she was too busy looking at a very strange sight. From the fragments of her broken sword, another sword had emerged. It floated in the air amid a halo of bright white light. It looked a bit like an old viking broadsword, but with a longer handle and a wider blade that bore a hollow core, like the middle length of the blade was emptied out.  And from this floating blade she heard a voice, male and kind, speaking with a friendly baritone. “Well, I’ve certainly been asleep long enough. Child of the Star Family, I have heard your plea for power, and shall fulfill my covenant. Take my blade, and accept the phantom of Tyr as your ally and comrade in arms against all your foes.” “Say what?” Fenice blurted, somewhat dumbfounded. There was a brief pause as the floating, glowing viking sword coughed politely. “Um, perhaps I should rephrase? Grab hilt. Kick ass. Simple enough, child?” Fenice’s face cracked a gloriously bright smile and she nodded, “Now that makes sense!” She grabbed the floating blade, and the moment her hands closed around the hilt she felt a warm and tingling rush of power seep into her from it, adding onto the wild surge of Hollow energies still flowing out of her soul. It left her all feeling a little light headed. Holding the hollow-cored viking blade in her left hand, she glanced at her broken claymore, and with a moment of focused will she generated a fresh flow of magma from it. Lava poured forth and rapidly cooled, reforming the claymore’s blade in her right hand. She held both swords up, examining them, “Huh, never saw myself as a dual wielder, but I’ll get used to it.” The voice from the viking blade spoke again, chuckling heartily, “I always preferred a blade and a stout shield myself, but I’ve seen many warriors make two blades work! Hah, I take it this giant bug man is our enemy?” Pharynx was still staring at her, a bit taken aback by the turn of events, but he was quickly recovering his wits and his surprise was turning back into a fierce glare. “Just what is that sword, human? And why are you exuding so much Hollow power? That isn’t how a Fullbringer’s reiatsu feels.” Fenice laughed, not even sure of any of the answers herself. The ‘Phantom Blades’ her mother had spoken of the Star Family making, and her Arrancar biological father, Ravana. She didn’t fully understand it all herself, and at the moment she didn’t care.  “Don’t ask me! I just know that right now... I feel like I’ve got a good shot at kicking your teeth in! So you ready for round two or what!?” Fenice shouted, flourishing both blades in her hands. The voice from her new sword laughed heartily. “Yes, explanations can wait. Just know that you now hold a fragment of the power of Tyr in your hands, child. I shall serve you well.” I didn’t seem like Pharynx could hear the blade talking, because he showed no reaction to it and instead answered Fenice’s previous words, grinding his pincers together in a shower of sparks, “Don’t get too full of yourself because you had a little extra power hidden inside you. You’re still far more injured than I am, and my own power has hardly waned! Yes, come on for round two! I’m actually starting to enjoy myself” Fenice snorted, eyes growing cold, “Let’s see how long that lasts.” Not knowing for certain what abilities this ‘Phantom Blade’ might have, she decided to keep it simple at first. Testing out the speed of her new level of reiatsu, she intended to just use Fullbring to spring off the ground at Pharynx... but her Hollow power boiled inside her and instincts from the core of her soul rose up. So she flickered out of view with the distinct buzzing noise that was no use of Fullbring, but instead a Sonido. Or rather, a Sonido that was further enhanced by Fullbring, catapulting her faster than even she expected straight towards Pharynx’s chest! It happened so fast she barely had time to swing her claymore, wrapping it in a sheath of bubbling magma that was in turn wreathed in an aura of red Hollow spirit energy. The lava itself seemed to gleam red as her blade scraped along Pharynx’s chest, cutting through his hardened Hierro and drawing a spurt of thick blood. Shocked by her attack actually penetrating his Hierro, Pharynx growled and skittered back, slamming his pincer arms in rapid succession, generating a storm of wind force as he tried to overwhelm her instantly with high speed strikes powerful enough to shatter the ground beneath them. Yet Fenice found she could block these, working both her swords in tandem to absorb the impact of consecutive, blinding strikes that previously would have pummeled her into a bloody mess!  The viking swords voice spoke to her as she worked to parry Pharynx’s assault, “You wield Gleipnir, my old sword. It’s golden bindings can restrain any foe, even the mighty Fenrir!” “Yeah, great! I have no idea how to do that!” Fenice said, leaping over one of Pharynx’s pincers and spinning herself into a corkscrew motion as she flew at his head, generating a whipping wave of red and orange magma that she flung like a liquid boomerang. Pharynx shielded himself with his thick arms, but while this protected his head, the magma started to sizzle and burn into the armoring of his limb. Grunting in pain, he opened his pincers and generated a pair of green energy circles, and started to quickly fire spinning cages at Fenice. She flung herself into a series of swift evasions, getting used to the way her body now moved with Sonido. However Pharynx wasn’t just flinging these cages randomly, and in a second or two, Fenice saw he’d surrounded her with over a score of crackling energy circles that then started to join together to form a larger spherical cage around her! She threw herself towards the narrow opening that was left, trying to get through before it closed. Even as the cage closed around her, she didn’t slow down, crossing both swords in front of her and giving out a guttural roar. Magma shot from her bone wing, adding thrust to her motion, and a corona of heat aura billowed around her as she slammed, blades first, into the cage wall. Pharynx gave a grim smile as he closed his pincers around the cage sphere and started compressing it with Fenice inside. “This should end it... huh?” He blinked as a bright orange crack appeared in the spherical cage held in his pincers, which rapidly grew until it shattered like egg shell, and a blazing rocket of magma led by a still roaring Fenice came flying out and erupted in an uppercut slash right to Pharynx’s chin. His helmet held, but cracked, and his entire fifty foot body was lifted off the ground and sent tumbling upwards. He then suddenly halted, air whooshing from his lungs as something wrapped around his chest and instantly stopped all his upward momentum. Looking, he saw a band of golden energy around him, and glanced down to see that from Fenice’s new sword, from the hollow core of the viking blade, a bright band of gold light had shot out and wrapped around him so tightly that it was squeezing the air out of his lungs! “Oh, so that’s what you meant!” Fenice said, “Neat.” She then yanked down as hard as she could with the viking blade, which in turn yanked down on Pharynx with incredible force as he was pulled down by this seemingly unbreakable band of energy. Like an out of control yo-yo he was smashed straight into the ground with a sizable impact. Before he could shake off the daze from that, he felt himself getting yanked once more, this time finding his body getting spun around as Fenice waved her blade around in a circle, spinning him faster and faster as the gold band of energy stayed tight around his body. Pharynx tried to scrape at it and snap the binding with his pincers, but even his immense strength seemed unable to cut through the binding, and in a few seconds of getting spun around he felt himself getting flung headlong at the very wall of his cage like a fifty foot tall ballistic missile! He impacted with it hard, grunting from several of his own energy spikes poking into his back. Before he could fully recover, he felt a wave of heat and looked up in time to see Fenice flying right at him. He managed to cross his pincers in defense, but she still rammed her blazing, magma-covered claymore straight into his arms, penetrating deep into one of the pincers, while still drilling forward with immense speed and power... enough to break both of them through the energy cage entirely! Distantly, Gaw finished opening a hole in the cage as she’d been trying to do this entire time, and gave a shout of, “I did it!” Only a moment before the entire cage collapsed into shards of fading green energy as Fenice battered Pharynx through the entire thing. Gaw grunted and did as close as a dinosaur’s face could to a pout, “I still did it...” Di Roy, caught between amazement and sympathy, patted Gaw’s leg while still holding Roka with a supporting arm, “Roka, the hell’s going on with your sister? Why does she totally feel more like an Arrancar, now?” Roka’s eyes were wide and showed nothing but surprise, “I... don’t know. I knew she had an unusual past, but nothing that would explain this.” “Well it looks like I missed a lot!” Gaw, Di Roy, and Roka all turned to see that Ember had appeared nearby, and she wasn’t alone. Next to the blue haired tomboy Arrancar was a small host of Torch’s warriors, followed by the tall, lumbering Fifth Espada himself, landing on the sands next to his danger with his axe already brandished. “Felt a brawl goin’ on on our turf, and figured you lot must have run into some fun!” Torch bellowed, grinning, while also giving the fight nearby an appraising look. Fenice and Pharynx were now both flickering in and out of Sonido, exchanging blows at an accelerating pace. Each time Pharynx's pincers clashed with one of Fenice's blades, it created a peal of thunder and shook the air. Even as the onlookers watched, the pair broke apart from their fierce exchange of blows and Pharynx swept one pincer in a wide arc, generating a barrage of small green, pincer-shaped Bala bullets that swarmed at Fenice. In response she matched his maneuver, lava shooting out in multiple streams from her singular bone wing that then compacted into small bullets of magma hat were charged with Hollow power, effectively creating magma Bala that fired out and crashed into Pharynx's barrage in a series of multiple rapid explosions that filled the air between the two combatants. Torch raised an eyebrow, “That looks like one of Chrysalis’ brats and Lament’s human kid.” Ember frowned, “Yeah, but both of them are putting out way too much reiatsu! This feels like I’m watching two Espada fight, not a Fraccion and some human chick.” Di Roy made an annoyed sound deep in his throat, “Yeah it’s super freakin’ neat and all, but Roka is kinda bleeding out over here! I have to get her to that embassy, asap!” Ember glanced at him and nodded, “I’ll help carry her. Dad?” Torch nodded, bouncing his axe on his prodigious shoulders, “Go ahead, honey. I’ll keep an eye on things here.” “You’ll... make sure Fenice... doesn’t get hurt?” Roka asked him, and Torch let out a deep belly laugh, nodding at the fight.  “Take a proper gander at that brawl! Your sister doesn't need looking after, I’m thinking. In fact, I think it’s not gonna last too much longer.” All now watched as the battle between Fenice and Pharynx reached its feverish pitch of fury. The two had gone airborne, Pharynx becoming a massive streak of motion as he tried to overwhelm Fenice with one mountainous physical blow after another. In turn she matched him motion for motion, blazing a burning trail through the air to meet his attacks with her own clashing blades. And it was gradually becoming clear that every impact of Pharynx's pincers on her bright, burning magma sword was charring more of his chitin, cracking his pincers even further. With a feral growl, Pharynx's insect wings revved up to high speed and he flew up even higher into the air to get above Fenice. He then started firing multiple Ceros from his pincers down at Fenice. However between each Cero he also fired one of his cage rings, flinging them about the field of sand or hanging them in the air. The reason for this became swiftly evident as some of his Ceros he aimed for the rings, which then formed cylindrical cages of various curvatures which then spun and moved to redirect the Cero beams. In mere seconds Fenice was being surrounded by a veritable storm of explosive beams that were now coming at her from countless directions. She leaped and wove through them as best she could, her wing of bone jetting magma like a sheet of bright light that boosted her speed to curve and dance through the Cero beams. Even so explosions were detonating all over, filling the air with smoke and debris, and some detonations were so close they were singing Fenice’s body. Yet amid it all she was not idle, firing streams of magma from her claymore up at Pharynx. He dodged these streams with seeming ease, blinking in and out of view with Sonido and hardly slowing his Cero blasts. “Hmph, your power has increased, but your aim has not improved,” he taunted, and smiled as he saw one of his Ceros, which had curved through several of his cage rings, catch Fenice from behind and exploded upon her. She tumbled to the ground, smoking, and he converged more beams towards her, although he had to dodge once more as this time Fenice flung up that gold band of light from her new sword. “Hah, even your new weapon will fail you if you can’t hit me with it!” As his Cero beams converged on her location, he saw Fenice make a final, desperate dodge with her enhanced Sonido, barely escaping the catastrophic combined explosion of multiple Cero beams. Still, he could tell she was badly injured now, all of her previous injuries having accumulated enough to slow her down as she stumbled to her feet. Oddly, she hadn’t retracted her band of gold light, despite having missed him with it. “I don’t remember missing yet...” Pharynx heard her mumble, and then yank down hard with the viking sword. Now Pharynx felt heat on his back and turned to look up above him. All of those dozens of magma streams Fenice had fired at him that he’d dodged had not simply petered out. They’d accumulated together into one big ball of magma. More than that, this ball pulsated with veins of red energy, a vast amount of Hollow power concentrated like some kind of huge Cero bomb. And now Fenice’s band of gold light had wrapped around it and yanked the whole thing straight down, and consequently right on top of Pharynx! “Oh hell...” Pharynx muttered, and took the entire ball of supercharged magma that was twice his size straight on. It and he went flying straight down to the ground not more than twenty meters from Fenice’s position, where upon impact the entire sphere exploded in a gloriously intense and hot pillar of flame, heat, magma, and raw Cero energy that rocked all of Las Noches for a few seconds and sent a blast wave of air rushing across the sands. From her sword, that same voice spoke, “Not bad at all, for a first time out. You wield Gleipnir well.” Fenice sighed and plopped to the ground on her rear, utterly exhausted, “Yeah... you’re gonna have a lot of explaining to do about what the blazes you are... but not right now. Too tired to think.” She fell backwards, drained and breathing heavily while trying to just ignore how hurt she felt all over. The impact zone where Pharynx had fallen was smoking, but gradually clearing, revealing him battered and charred, and largely unmoving save for a few twitches and groans. He didn’t look like he was going to get up anytime soon.  Fenice felt like she might be able to relax for a second. But then she felt spiritual pressure press down on her in a manner so oppressive it nearly crushed the air from her lungs. Looking up, she saw a familiar chiseled face of red attached to a body of immaculate muscle staring down at her. “Well,” Tirek said, “It seems Lament has been hiding something from me.”