The soldiers all scampered to escape the beast larger than even titans as it was roused from its slumber. Hundreds were lost to the fissuring planet as the vulcan did the equivalent of getting out of bed and yawning. To Moon's displeasure, Gallant survived, likely not without the aid of the automaton. Sunny sat on a platform of Nightmare Moon's magic, completely spent. He couldn't quantify the feeling he currently had when looking upon a mountain range crumbling under the weight of something that shouldn't exist. A multitude of tendrils whipped back and forth from its underside, casting frozen magma everywhere in an imitation of an asteroid shower piercing the sky.
Its back shuddered, merely irritated by the thousands of tons of mountain range and living creatures that inhabited them. They were pushed away by a crenelated structure similar to what Sunny had seen on industrial production lines. Rows of bronze-colored spikes pushed and flattened, launching whatever was on its back further along the rows until the debris was flung off and away. Whatever hadn't been destroyed by its body had been by the debris and it had shaken off of itself. The young unicorn felt like he knew what it meant to be a bug, now.
"We need to stop it from moving," Moon panicked. It was the first time that Sunny ever saw the alicorn show any true form of panic, and it unnerved him further. "My sister has lost her mind, be it fragment or not." The alicorn's body glowed. "She wouldn't have done this in a million years in the past." She cast a side glance at her nephew. "You will stay here. I'll try and stop that immense beast."
"But you can't--" It was too late. She had already left.
The gigantis' head emerged from the debris still coating its rock-like skin, revealing it to be relatively flat and wide, like an arrowhead. Six massive eyes greeted the world, each looking like a chiseled ruby reflecting light through its core. It looked around, apparently ignoring or simply being unaware of the tiny things around it.
Even from the height he was at, allowing the young unicorn to peer down at the immense beast, he could still feel the tremors of its muscles flexing and vibrations caused by every step it took. He couldn't do anything as he watched Nightmare Moon and the surviving guards attempt to hold the monstrosity back with barriers and restraints of magic. Nothing worked. The creature would just absentmindedly continue forward as if nothing was in its way. It knew immediately where to go to find its new home.
"Entertaining, isn't it?" a voice asked.
Sunny jumped in terror. Solar Flare was flying next to him, a tremendous grin plastered on her shattered face, letting lava flow abundantly.
"Why are y--" Sunny cleared his throat. "Why are you up here? Aren't you going to kill me?"
"And why would I do that?" Solar asked. "You're going to die anyways." She leaned in, amplifying her smile. "Slowly and painfully."
Sunny gulped, but he's lived with Nightmare Moon breathing down his neck for a year now, if not longer. The threat of a painful death meant nothing. "But you'll just turn me into that weird ghost thing down there."
He pointed towards the amalgamation fighting with the automaton to occupy it. From what Sunny could see, the automaton was struggling against the weird amorphous entity that would simply reconstitute itself whenever it was struck by a spell or physical object, but it struggled with a smile.
"Like you did them."
Solar snorted in disapproval. "I plan on dissolving them afterward. They'll have no purpose then." She looked at her sister, and Sunny could see her brows furrowing. "Why does she insist on trying to stop that thing? There's no reason to save any of you."
The young unicorn shrugged. "She told me that, being in the moon for so long let her think about what happened to her and how to avoid it." He ignored Solar staring at him with contempt. "I think she never expected to be freed, so she ran a bunch of scenarios through her head. I do the same when studying." She scratched her neck and watched as immense, living shadows emerged from around the Gigantis and started wailing on it and attempting to push it away. "It helps to understand what you're potentially doing wrong, but without an outside factor it only stays theoretical."
"You...study?" Solar asked with incredulity.
"Y-yes? I'm a linguist and a historian, or at least I am...was trying to become one."
The molten alicorn grit her sharp, obsidian teeth against each other, creating sparks. "You look like my daughter but you don't share her 'passions', so to speak." She snorted, unleashing flame and soot from her nostrils. "I even had a school set up for those that displayed talent beyond the usual for ponies their age."
"Never heard of such a thing."
Solar snorted. "Of course not. They probably destroyed it, too. My legacy obliterated by overzealous ponies."
Sunny remained quiet for several tense minutes, watching the beast ignore even the shadows rising to its height and attempting to push it back. "They destroyed the legacy of all alicorns, not just yours," the young stallion explained. "I don't know how many came after you, but they were slaughtered and their stories tarnished before being forgotten altogether." He shifted in place, uncomfortable. "At least I'm assuming they made them go crazy. Every single alicorn destroying the world seems farfetched."
"You even talk like her..." the alicorn trailed off. Her face started cracking again, and copious streams of magma flowed from her eyes. "But soon I won't have to look at you or the world that betrayed me and stole my sister from me...And my daughter," she growled as the flow increased.
Sunny tilted his head away from her, perplexed.
Nightmare Moon, however, was not enjoying her time with the beast. Her digging into the power of the immense moon did nothing to stop this creature. She narrowly dodged a swipe by the amalgamation and gave her own, burrowing it into the rocky ground below.
"This isn't going anywhere!" Moon cursed loudly.
"Could be worse," the automaton mused. Its body was bent and twisted, but its pilot suffused it with more magic to keep it running. "You could still be alive."
Moon glared at him. "The whole world is going to be destroyed and you use this opportunity to make an ill-conceived joke?"
The doll shrugged. "As good a time as any." Its false face frowned. "But if the world ends I will be left with only you two alicorns as companions." The magic within ground its gears angrily. "I can't let that happen...but what to do?"
It watched Moon glow green as she dug into the powers of the third moon. She flew far in front of the beast and let the magic loose. The surface of the green satellite appeared briefly behind her, engulfing everyone's vision before fading into a cloudy of wispy, green smoke. The gigantis reacted poorly to feeling its soul and lifeforce being stretched and pulled around. It rose one leg up slowly, allowing the rock and dirt that had clung to it to fall before being compressed even further by a stomp. It seemed like the whole planet shook violently from the strike alone. Cracks and fissures grew along the entirety of the mountain range, causing most of it to collapse into the newly formed fissures. Moon screamed in pain as she, the automaton, and the amalgamation were launched into the air.
"Nightmare Moon!" The young unicorn screamed.
Solar Flare fumbled, clinging to her body as she shook from extreme pain.
"What's wrong?!" Sunny blurted out despite himself.
The alicorn looked at him with a half-opened eye then towards the hecatonchires-class monster. Multiple screams filled everyone's ears as a red bubble covered in roiling, screaming faces expanded then popped in front of the beast.
"Truly a beast of the apocalypse," Solar admonished through clenched teeth. "Broke my new magic through a simple stomp of its hoof."
"You have to help her! She's your sister!"
The alicorn groaned as the pain started to fade away. "She'll survive. We've been through similar with the changeling hordes."
Sunny frowned. "Hordes? But they're only in hives and keep to themselves."
Solar laughed. "Queen Chrysalis and her ilk are biding their time?"
The unicorn tilted his head, perplexed. "Who?"
He was met with a concerned and annoyed expression. "The queen of the changelings."
"She's not the queen."
A sinister smile crept along Solar's face. "So she died then. Fantastic. Her immortality meant nothing."
Sunny raised a brow, confused. "But they aren't immortal."
Solar shrugged. "Lives long. Immortality. No difference to me." She put a hoof to her chin and started thinking. "I'll have to figure out how to deal with the others, though. Discord is the main concern for me. Him and his damnable chaos magic."
"Who?"
The alicorn's fires dimmed when she heard that one word, and she slowly looked at Sunny as though he had just done some kind of unspeakable act. "The god of chaos..." She was met with a shrug. "If he's gone, that means they all are. That can't be...So my daughter is well and truly..."
Moon collapsed on a pile of rubble, watching the beast slowly approach her and the automaton. All that was left of the doll was a head, a torso, and half of a foreleg. Gears and cogs within whirred angrily, many too damaged to grind correctly. The alicorn felt the boiling rage of her final successor trying to boil over within her but kept her composure.
She sputtered up dust. "Even the green moon did nothing."
"A lot of good you are," the automaton mused.
"I didn't see you succeeding in your attempts," the alicorn spat back.
"I'm not a god now, am I? I'm just a puny, downtrodden mortal," it stated sarcastically. It hobbled its body around to get a direct look at the Vulcan. "Well. If even you can't stop that thing, then..." It groaned in annoyance.
"What are you proposing?" Nightmare Moon asked on wobbly legs.
"I can free myself from my self-imposed prison with a drop of your magic," the automaton explained. Moon stared at, befuddled. "It was a failsafe in-case they needed me to come back out and kill another of your kind, or another immortal. I only managed it partially in the past, and you saw to ending that simulacrum."
"So my and my sister's magic aren't enough?"
The automaton laughed. "You need a focal point for it to work, usually using somepony as a sacrifice."
Moon narrowed her eyes and let her magic intensify her ghostly glow. "And freeing you will do what?"
"I'll use all the alicorn magic that I've been given to guard and send the beast to another world."
The alicorn collapsed to the ground, fatigue overtaking her. She cursed. "And then you will come after me."
Her suspicion was met with an 'eye' roll. "My simulacrum could not cope with the little alicorn magic it was given. What do you think will happen to me?"
Moon gazed at the beast growing steadily larger and saw griffins attack it from afar unsuccessfully. "Fine. It's either the world gets destroyed or helping you, but I don't trust you."
She focused her magic into her horn, causing her body to glow brightly, but she was interrupted by the automaton slamming its broken leg against her barrel.
"I will not survive this," it explained plainly.
"So you have said already."
"You misunderstand." The doll paused, staring seemingly into nothing. "All the alicorn magic I have accumulated over the years will be freed, so you will be responsible for what is to come. This will create an era of new alicorns popping up left and right at the same time, each encompassing its own aspects." Its leg dug in further. "Don't let them live. Kill them when they're born if you have to."
Moon said nothing and let an insignificant portion of her magic into the automaton which became limp on contact. The sky above rent apart, unveiling a swirling red gash in wish the false alicorn Moon had fought before floated in the fetal position. He unfurled his tired, aching body, and floated out, limbs cracking and snapping at every effort. Even the alicorn could see that he was a creature that lived far beyond the time life had granted him. Without warning, countless millennia of alicorn magic flew out from him causing the world to shake violently. A red portal broke open next to the gigantis, unveiling a world filled with rows of active volcanoes, its skies filled with toxic gasses and its seas a morass of hungry light and fire.
The alicorn watched as her opponent's body cracked and crumbled as he funneled more magic into the vortex to pull in the gigantis vesuvius vulcan. It struggled briefly, but the sheer power being exerted was a surprise even to it. After several moments, the creature found itself sucked into the world of fire and gas and wailed when the portal closed. Nightmare Moon could not determine whether it was misery to losing its home or joy from being in a world it enjoyed.
She was startled by a dry 'thud' occurring next to her and saw that it was the false alicorn, resembling the automaton in all but his disheveled and bony appearance.
The false alicorn chuckled. "You know," he said with a weak and quiet voice. "I really did want to have a family and child of my own, but I thought that worrying for the well-being of the others was a grander goal..." He groaned as his skin shrunk tighter over his bones. "I've had more than enough time to ponder if that was true or not..."
"What is your name?" Moon asked him. "I can at least respect somepony for their dedication to their cause and the work they put in to accomplish it. I can at least put a name to the one that wiped gods from the world."
The dying pony laughed, coughing up dust and dry red. "I didn't do it alone, but my name is Shining Sparkle. We never touched the legacy of regular ponies. You might find mine somewhere out there, maybe." He leaned his head against his leg, sighing in relief. "Finally. I can finally rest now. I wonder if I'll meet my loved ones again. Dear ol' Twilly..."
With those last words, his body dissolved completely and the magic once held within him burst out, terrifying even the alicorn of the night. Magic of all types and colors burst forth from the ashy remains and flew in every possible direction before the sky was left bare and clean save the dust kicked up by the awakening of the gigantis vesuvius vulcan. Moon looked down at the dust and felt a tinge of envy at his final moments of rest. She almost wished she could have destroyed him in person...a thought that brought to light a question: Where had the king gone?
"No!" another voice shouted angrily. Sunny was thrown down with a pained grunt and ended up next to Moon. "No no no! What have you done?! It was almost done! We were almost free!"
"Ah yes, my sister. I still have you to deal with," Moon grunted. She made to stand, bracing for the pain, but rose in shock instead. She felt nothing. "Such invigoration...Was he holding on to my magic?!" she bellowed furiously.
Her magic crashed into Solar Flare's, and the two stood against each other on equal footing. Sunny watched in horror as yet another catastrophe was about to occur. Griffonia was in ruins, and now two goddesses of opposing ideals were about to let loose upon each other. What could he do in this scenario?