“FIRE!”
“STRIKE THE ENEMY!”
Sunset stumbled as she landed by Colonel Harumi, a nearby private handing her a ice-cold water bottle which she drained greedily. She’d just let down her firewall yet again to let the ground troops attack the robot hoards. The advancing army - which had seemed to be thinning out an hour before - had swelled with each captured Defense Point. “How’re we doing?” Sunset gasped.
“Not well,” Colonel Harumi lamented. “South-central is all that remains of the southern forces. And north-central is about to-” She was cut off as a giant beam of magical energy sprang up to their east. She sighed. “...has fallen. It’s down to us up here.”
Sunset cursed under her breath. “No choice, then?”
Colonel Harumi shook her head. “We’ll have to retreat to the sports field and make our stand there. Otherwise the north-central army will come around behind us.”
Sunset nodded. “Alright. I’ll-” A wave of vertigo washed over her, and next thing she knew she was seated in a chair, Colonel Harumi’s hand on her shoulder.
“You, Nichibotsu-Yuusha, will sit here and recover your strength. Those fancy toys of yours may be doing most of the heavy lifting, but you’re still fighting and running yourself ragged out there. We’ll handle the retreat. Just get ready to throw up that firewall when we’re ready to move out.”
Sunset begrudgingly saluted. “Yes, sir.” When Colonel Harumi left, she let her arm drop to her side. She sighed, feeling weary and drained. She’d been reduced to purely ki-based combat for the last half-hour, needing to reserve her dwindling magic reserves to power her jacket. And even her monstrous amounts of ki were beginning to drain. Plus, they had yet to slow down or take out the Demon God which had managed to advance. Sunset had tried to go after it a few times, her efforts thwarted every time as the Tanaka units below had turned their weapons as one upon her. After Takamichi had nearly taken out one of the Demon Gods down south, they weren’t letting any Hero units near them.
“We’re losing this fight,” Sunset muttered, glaring up at the sky where fireworks helped to illuminate the night. A call had gone out not long ago to search for Chao so the remaining hero units could take her out, but Sunset doubted there was much they could do against her directly. With her time magic, they had a better shot at disrupting the ritual by taking out one of the Demon Gods.
“And Takamichi’s the only one who even came close to that,” Sunset muttered. “Heh, I really screwed them over in the other timeline when I took him out. Even with how much ki I have, I barely have an idea of where to begin fighting that. How are we gonna-”
Sunset’s thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected sound. Ordinary under most circumstances, but strange for its total absence over the last few hours.
Kaede’s phone was ringing in her pocket.
Several more ringtones started going off, accompanied by cries of shock and delight. Sunset pulled out the pilfered phone and saw Ako’s number flashing. Flipping open the phone, she took the call. “I thought Chao was interfering with conventional communications?”
“She was.” The heaviness that had been settling over Sunset’s heart lifted slightly at Ako’s voice. “Hasegawa-san managed to hack her interference and get the phone lines open again.”
Huh. Good for you, Chisame. I doubt you could have done that without an artifact, though. There’s one more for the club. “Good to know. Might be too little too late, though. I don’t know how we can stop these colossi from advancing. The Tanaka units start targeting me exclusively whenever I get close, and we don’t have enough soldiers to provide cover for me.”
“Not enough…” Ako’s voice went quiet for a minute. “Nichi-chan, I might have an idea to help with that.”
“Oh?” Sunset listened to Ako’s idea, her eyes going wide. “Oh.” A grin split her face as she leapt to her feet. “That’s great! Ako, I freaking love you!”
“Oh! Um, well, yes, I know…”
Sunset ignored Ako’s stuttered response as she turned to shout over her shoulder. “Niikuma-Taisa! The phone lines are open, and we’ve got a plan!”
*****
Tanaka units swarmed onto the sports field, blasting the few remaining defenders with their defabrification beams and sending the stripped soldiers running. The final push had been far easier than all of their earlier efforts, the forces before them dwindling and retreating far more quickly than would have been expected. It had been easy to take the fifth defense point, even as the sixth was being threatened. Most people would have been skeptical or paranoid at the ease of victory.
Unfortunately for Chao, her robot soldiers were not programmed to be skeptical.
So it was that they were totally overwhelmed when - as they made a path for the Demon God - they were beset upon on all sides by who they thought had been mere observers.
Colonel Harumi huffed from the third story of a nearby building, watching as “mages” leapt from the shadows to ambush the robot army. “I’m usually not a fan of these sorts of sneak attacks, but I suppose they do have their place.”
The call had gone out as soon as the phone lines had opened. The event had opened up to everyone for its final phase, regardless of whether they had originally registered or not. Weapons and cloaks had been distributed quickly and quietly as civilians turned to soldiers en masse. The signal had gone out just as the Demon Gods were making their final approaches, and everyone left in the fight had leapt out to distract the robot army.
High above the battlefield, Sunset hovered on fiery wing. Half her attention was on the battle below, the other half on the battle above. The few remaining Hero units besides her had joined Negi on his final assault against Chao, who had set up her ritual on a blimp idling four-thousand meters above the World Tree. There in the sky, they fought a squadron of flight-enabled Tanaka units while Negi engaged Chao directly in combat. However, Satomi Hakase was performing the spell itself, so that even if Negi won his fight they might still lose the battle.
And so Sunset turned her attention away from that fight to focus on the one down below. The Tanaka units were distracted, their fairly straightforward programming unable to realize that they were merely battling a diversion. Sunset took a deep breath of the chilled, high-altitude air.
Then she cut off her magic, and fell.
She squinted against the wind as she fell faster and faster, quickly reaching terminal velocity. She pulled on her wellspring, drawing most of her ki to rest just beneath the surface, keeping it hidden for as long as possible. The ground approached rapidly, as did her target. Sunset briefly considered that this might be what it was like to be a pegasus, diving for the ground without a fear in the world, instincts screaming at her to pull up or protect herself, adrenaline pumping through her veins and turning her heart into a pounding drum in her ears.
A grin split her face as she flipped, aiming feet-first for the top of the colossus’ head. Screw the honor and power; if this is what flight is like, I’m gonna ascend just for this!
She released her ki full-force and immediately collided with the titan, bearing it to the ground.
An explosion of dust and debris billowed out on a shockwave from her impact, prompting the mages nearby to take cover and sending the nearby Tanaka units flying. A small figure shot out of that dust cloud, wings of fire flaring to bring it to a hover midair.
“Did it work?” someone shouted from below.
A white titan slowly rose from the cloud, trailing streams of dust, its head split open and dripping with golden ichor. Sunset finally got a good look at this Demon God up close. It resembled an Equestrian minotaur, but with a humanoid head. Or perhaps a giant satyr from Earth’s mythology. The bottom half was bovine or caprine, thinly furred with hooves. This transitioned to a muscular human upper body - Sunset briefly wondered if all demon gods had six-pack abs - and terminated in a face that was mostly human, save for the fang-filled maw and the dead-seeming eyes. Thin chrome armor covered its glowing white body, a raised ridge of metal trailing down its spine and blinking with lights.
“Not quite,” Sunset muttered, flying to the titan’s side to examine it from another angle. The titan started turning its head to follow her before jerking suddenly, its head snapping back towards the sports field as it took another thundering step forward.
Sunset frowned. So it retains a portion of its own will, but only so long as it doesn’t go against Chao’s objective. So much for pulling it off course. Time for plan C, then. Sunset shot skyward again, quickly rising to her previous height before cutting off her magic once more. “This is gonna be unpleasant,” she muttered as she fell once again, aiming just ahead of the colossus this time. She didn’t go unnoticed by the Tanaka units this time around, but the mages were able to keep them from interfering with cover fire. Sunset fell past the titan’s face. Its neck. It’s chest.
When she leveled with its ribs, she poured every remaining scrap of magic into her jacket. She grunted as she felt the leather yank against her chest, bruising a couple of ribs even through her ki. Still, she managed a turn so tight a Wonderbolt would have blushed in envy. One moment she was heading straight for the ground. The next, she was hurtling for the titan’s gut. She flared her ki, curling up into a ball and bracing herself.
The human cannonball that was Sunset Shimmer slammed into the colossus’ gut, bringing the creature to a sudden halt. And, with a wet, disgusting squelch, burst out the other side in a spray of golden ichor. The colossus roared in agony and rage, Sunset barely noticing it as her momentum carried her down the street behind it, bouncing a few times along the road before skidding to a stop about half-way back towards the beach. She groaned as she pushed herself to her hands and knees. “Did that do it?”
She looked up to see the demon god turning, its eyes now clear and filled with wrath. It roared once again and began stomping towards her, even as ichor continued to seep from the hold in its gut.
“Yup, that did it.”
She fled. Back towards the beach she ran, the demon god following behind and catching up. She tried to pull more magic into her jacket, but she was tapped out. All she had left was her ki, and that had taken a significant hit keeping herself from splattering like a bug against the titan’s chest. She was almost out of options, and had nothing left that could take the colossus down.
That’s fine, Sunset thought as she ran. I don’t need to kill it. I just need to keep it distracted long enough for the rest of them to stop Satomi and Chao. She reached the beach, turning on her heel and facing the titan as it stepped out from between the buildings. Even now, she could see its head twitching sideways occasionally, its eyes glazing briefly before clearing again as the machines in its armor tried to compel it back towards the task that Chao had assigned it.
I don’t have long, Sunset thought. It’ll turn back for the sports field before much longer, and I won’t be able to capture its attention again. All I can do now is delay it further. The titan roared as it reared back before swinging its massive fist down towards her. Sunset leapt to the side, dodging the fist as it slammed into the ground. She rolled to her feet and rushed straight towards the colossus. Which means I’ve got one shot at this. Come on, big guy. I’m just an annoying little bug. And what do you do to bugs?
The demon god stood upright again and raised one of its legs before sending it crashing down towards Sunset. She skidded to a halt, grinning nervously up at the hoof the size of a house as it descended towards her. Oh please let this work! She pled as she poured ki into the sand beneath her feet. Into the silt beneath it. Into the stone beneath that. She braced herself against the world itself, pouring power into her right fist.More than she’d used in the tournament. More than she’d seemed to use in her mental fight with Evangeline. More power than she’d poured into a single blow in years, even before stepping through that portal. Her fist glowed with energy as, with a cry of mixed determination and desperation, she punched the hoof that descended upon her.
A geyser of sand billowed up around the colossus, accompanied by a series of deafening cracks. The beast roared in agony and collapsed backwards onto the street leading towards the sports field. Pain filled its eyes for a moment before they finally glazed over again. It turned back towards the sports field, pushing itself to its hooves.
Another loud crack split the night, and the colossus collapsed. Through the cloud of sand, one could barely make out the shape of its leg, twisted at an unnatural angle. The beast grunted, reaching forward and dragging itself slowly - too slowly - towards the sports field.
Back at the site of the impact, A large crater of compressed and displaced sand was slowly filling with water from the lake. In the middle of this crater rose a pillar of stone, fused into a perfect column from the enormous pressure it had just been under. Lying face-down atop that pillar, weary and worn, was Sunset. She groaned and looked up, barely managing to lift her head. She stared after the colossus as it dragged itself southward.
She smirked. “Heh. Good luck. You’ll never make it in time. Even if-” A fifth column of magical energy shot into the sky further south. “...when the other point falls, there’s no way you’ll make it to the sports field in time for the ritual.” Sure enough, a few minutes later, as Colonel Harumi arrived and started directing her soldiers to start making a makeshift bridge to reach Sunset, the announcement went out. The Child Teacher had beaten Chao Lingshen. The last colossus had failed to arrive in time. The ritual had been stopped.
They’d won.