Chapter 61- Breaking Apart
Tumbler lay under a... What was this thing? Whatever it was, it was made from solid earth. He winced once, the pain he felt currently in his body was a new one. Maybe changelings could invent a word for this sensation. If it weren’t for his hardened carapace, he would have certainly suffered worse damage. For once, he was glad he earned the title “Tower.” His defence was unrivaled among his mates. This also caused something of a stir... Changelings, especially young ones- Got bored. One game they like to play was “Topple the Tower.” A tackle here and there. A swing from a frying pan. Even a boot to his protective shell.
Only general Sphragis came close to knock down Tumbler with physical power. Even in terms of magic power, only The Queen and King with added emotion power made a dent in his carapace. This, added with his relative young mind- Made him cocky, brash, and stupid. But this also made him very defensive, even he wasn’t aware he was doing it. Tumbler knew when to play dead. He stayed quiet, watching with a single green eye.
That black maned “Human” looked like... Well, like some kind of thing looking for something. He didn’t realize she was blind. The taller human was vanishing from view, but it didn’t look like magic. The rainbow colored pegasi was bleeding, a small pool of blood spilling on the floor. While he had managed to stab her, his horn was thin so the wound wasn’t large. If he had been smart, he would’ve asked for parley and arranged a prisoner exchange. If only he...
Wait a tick... He blinked once, turning to look at a pony that was walking to the Rodeo, slowly and softly. The green pony took a moment to look around and then shifted it’s color to blue and nod. Tumbler opened his eyes a second and then slowly moved its neck to motion for changeling in disguise to move on. Spy Alpha turned around and walked off.
“Someone talk to me! I can feel a heartbeat racing a mile a minute, and another one fading!” Toph shouted, moving her left hand out to slowly look for Phoenix and Dash. She said nothing about the changeling, she had it pinned.
“My arms and... I think I’m fading from view,” Phoenix turned to look at his arms finally. “And Rainbow Dash isn’t breathing...”
“Rainbow Dash?!” Fluttershy shouted though the Octo-phone.
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“Phoenix, what’s happening?!?” Fluttershy had her mouth open a bit, unable to hide or move from her spot to find a nice spot to hide. There was nowhere to go on a train. Dan was hurt, other ponies were injured and scared, Soma and Nate were fighting for their lives, Pinkie looked close to almost reaching her Discorded status on her own, and now the news of Rainbow Dash, her very best pegasus friend was hurt. She wanted to break down and cry. The kind pegasus was at a loss as to what to do and whimpered when Sokka started to yell out orders.
Rarity frowned, moving to help settle the staff ponies down to look over at her two friends. Did Fluttershy cry out Rainbow Dash? Was she in danger?! The alabaster unicorn raised her head over her left shoulder to look back and debated to get Nathan. No... Better wait until their situation was safer to talk. She walked over to a window to try and see if a changeling was flying close.
“Aahhh!”
Pinkie Pie picked up her head, hearing now Rarity shouting as she fell back. If this was a changeling it was in store for a... Her mouth fell open when she saw Soma’s head upside outside the window. The Element of Acceptance moved his right hand to knock on the window.
“Don’t you scare a lady like that, Mr. Cruz!” Rarity frowned as she stood up again. She opened the window to let the young man talk. As the train picked up more speed, he found his own hair swaying against his eyes and mouth, finding it hard to talk.
“How’s Dan?!” Soma asked, having even more problems trying to listen to Rarity.
“Shouldn’t you be... Deflecting bombs and fighting changelings off the train?!” Rarity moved closer to hear Soma better.
“I’m on it already...” Soma responded, moving to hold his bangs out of his face. “It seems they are running out of bombs, or they are holding off from using them since they are starting to land on the train.” Still, he moved from laying down to look back at the rest of the train and unleash another series of lighting bolts to have it travel from changeling to changeling and shock them off the train.
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“Alright! One crisis at a time!” Sokka shouted. He raised his left hand up to the rest of his team, trying to silencing them. There were so many questions and murmurs among them all that it was hard to hear. “Team Appleloosa! Phoenix, stay calm! Tell us what’s going on!”
Dovahkiin frowned but nodded. He ducked down to move his arms to grab and hug Applejack’s neck. She looked panicked, a lot more than he had ever seen her. “Everyone, silence!” He shouted, almost dragon-shouting them all. Derpy moved over to hug the colts and fillies still with them to keep them from crying to looking scared. She hummed a low tune to smile at them all. Ash crossed his arms on his chest, turning to look down at Mayor Mare with a frown. So far, she was the one holding on to Sokka’s maps he had requested. The thought of KND was the last thing on anyone’s mind.
“Sokka’s right...” Otacon spoke through the bluetooth.
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“Fading?! Talk to us. Phoenix!” Otacon raised his head up to look at the rest of his team. He got down to sit down next to Twilight, moving his left hand out to pat her mane. Unlike the others, she knew to stay quiet. But she could not hide her emotions. The purple unicorn stared up at Otacon’s face, eyes closed halfway as her lips supported a worried pouty look. Her mind was racing, thinking of a single spell that could help. A massive teleport? Maybe summing them here instead?
Samus kept quiet, waiting to see what was going to be said. All she could do was broadcast the signal for the others. She debated muting it, but she had been told not to. She moved a hand to Big Mac, who had both eyes closed as his head was lowered.
Trixie scowled, more from a feeling of annoyance than anything else. She didn’t hate Rainbow Dash, and had nothing but respect for Phoenix. True, the former lawyer was her one time rival in trial, but she proved no match for him in the end. But she could only imagine what Phoenix was going through. She wondered if Snake felt the same way about her. The mullet warrior had moved to place a hand on Otacon’s shoulder and stayed silent.
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“Are you hearing this?” Number Two asked. He had kept his radio on to listen to the midday report to determine how much time they had before the adults came looking for them. Tiara was busy, pouring ink on the press wheels. Scootaloo was busy running the machine, while Applebloom and Sweetie Bell were busy away at the typewriters.
“Yes, I hear this Number Two,” Nigel spoke as he frowned. He had his left hand behind his back, holding unto his right wrist as he looked down at the stack of newspapers.
“With all that’s going on, do we still pull out the papers?” Rumble frowned, not sure what to say. He had taken a second to look at Scootaloo’s face, she had looked upset before, but now her face was pale. The chicken-like pegasus couldn’t think, all she could do was turn the crank as her mind looked... Gone. While he would have liked to talk to the only cool pegasus filly he knew, Kuki had him trapped in a hug as she stayed silent and frowned.
“Scoots?” Wally leaned his head in to poke her side. “Uhh... Nobody’s home.”
“You may have a point. This could be the worst time to spring this on everyone. But...” Nigel turned his head away and frowned. As a leader, he had to make the hard decisions. “We cannot rule out this attack on the others is also a plan from the enemy. Number 5- Thoughts?”
“Let’s keep printing these, and see what happens, right? We can wait, see if things turn out better.” The black girl moved her left hand to lift her hat over her head and look down at Pipsqueak and smile.
“You do make a point. Keep working then. Number Two, turn up the radio.”
“Oh, in the name of Chaos!”
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Jack shot out his right hand, trying to grab the octo-phone from Discord’s magic hold on the device. Vergil raised his eyebrows as the device pulled the samurai, dragging his feet on the ground to the unicorn that walked down the steps. Princess Luna opened and closed her mouth, trying to clean her mouth from the taste of cupcake from her mouth. The pink frosting was okay, but it tasted like a cupcake made from unsweetened chocolate.
“Listen Phoenix! You are the Element of Hope! You got healing items!” Distant Star/Discord frowned, his horn glowing gray to have the Octo-phone on. “Everypony else, shut up!”
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“Healing items? Right!” Phoenix shook his head to the sides, trying to get the shock out of his mind. So much was happening now, and he wasn’t sure why he had been affected so much. He was used to high pressure situations. He was used to combat and people being hurt. But seeing Rainbow Dash bleed out like that... Was horrible. It felt like something was turning in his chest. He set down his partner and moved to grab the briefcase out to open it. “There’s a problem! I can’t...” The moment he took his briefcase out to set on the floor, it turned more visible and hard as compared to his vanishing body. “I can’t touch-!”
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“I damn it!” Distant shouted, growing more angry as the moment passed. “Phoenix, use your Brand! Use hope you nitwit! Toss the ear device off! Have Toph put it on!” Jack released the octo-phone, taking a step back as he saw the new unicorn’s face frown. Spike moved over to grab Jack’s arm and pull him back from the sleeve.
“What’s going on?!” Spike asked.
“It seems Rainbow Dash was stabbed, and Phoenix’s is fading from...” Jack said in a low voice. Princess Celestia’s recovered from her shock. She walked over to lower her head a bit to inspect Distant Star’s body. This was indeed Discord before Chaos took over.
“My Brand! Right!”
“Rainbow Dash is going to totally die now,” Distant pulled his head away from the floating bluetooth and look at the others. “I have no idea if this will work or not.” Distant Star blinked once to look at Celestia and stretch out his neck. “You mind? I’m working here...”
“What is wrong with you?!” Travis finally spoke out.
“Phoenix’s is fading...” Distant said in a matter of fact voice. He moved back to the bluetooth. “Tell Toph to use the- The Spray should do.”
“What am I doing again?” Toph called from her end.
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“The Spray?” The earthbender bent down on her knees, feeling for the briefcase with her hands. Slowly, her hands moved to slide over the items inside.
“It a metal cylinder,” The former lawyer called out. Phoenix was both knees as well, his right hand moved to grasp his left wrist. He was struggling, he was almost completed fading from view. His Brand however- Glowed red and yellow, it almost felt like it was burning his hand. He kept his hand over Rainbow Dash, her chest not moving anymore. It was so hard to focus now.
Tumbler blinked twice, noticing they were no longer paying attention to his form. He held his breath, wondering if he could transform yet. He shut both eyes and tried to focus his power into his horn. Huh? It was working. Earlier he was unable to focus his magic into his horn. But according to the reports from the King, it had taken the others much longer to transform again. It seems that Lyra’s magic power had run its course much faster than Twilight could. But what to transform into? Anything he changed into would still be pinned....
“Found it!” Toph found the spray and grinned.
“Hurry Toph! Use it on Rainbow Dash!” Distant cried out. Toph moved to the almost faded heartbeat to try and slide her hand to the top.
“Uh how do I-” When she pressed on the button, the medical contents were sprayed into her mouth. “Argh! Its in my mouth!”
“Sorry Toph!” Phoenix cried out, but barely able to be heard. He had almost completely faded from view, taking his voice with him. “Turn it slowly around and try again!” Toph stuck out her tongue, mouth open to try and turn the device and proceed to spray’s remaining contents on Rainbow Dash.
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“Oh, you have truly messed with the wrong guy,” Nate called out as he walked forward through the train cabin. He was sick of this! As soon as he had removed the caboose, the changelings already moved to swipe down at him. As the train picked up speed, it bounced and sent the treasure hunter to jostle about more than he wanted- Making really hard to aim. He ditched the gun and moved to take out the Kaiser Knuckles.
As the changelings ran forward to chase him, he spun around on his left foot to let loose a haymaker. Five fists flew out from his hand, connecting against the changeling’s face rapidly. Imprints on where the metal knuckles were left on the face of the dark creature.
“Damn, Soma was not kidding...” Nate said as he took his hands back and opened his eyes wide to look down at his smoking weapon. “Aw, crap!” Nate turned around to open the cabin door to separate the next car and hop off to the next one.
“Nathan!” Rarity rushed through the other one, almost knocking him back.
“Aw crap aw crap aw crap aw crap!” Nate shouted to wave his arms in front of himself to gain his balance. Rarity eyes opened wide as he moved forward to bite down on Nate’s shirt to lean back. She winced a bit, finally pulling him in. At the same time, Nate picked up his head and watched as a few changelings fell back from lighting. “Was that the last one then?”
“Nathan, are you alright?” Rarity asked to breath up and down.
“Thanks again Rarity. What’s going on with Dan?”
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Team Espionage huddled around Samus, listening to the sounds of breathing and moved of Toph.
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Scootaloo finally stopped running the press and rushed over to Hoagie. They had all stopped working and huddled close to listen to the child’s radio.
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Sokka frowned, having just finished writing on the tablet the news. Applejack moved to lean into Derpy, eyes closed as they hugged each other.
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“I could go for some chocolate milk...” Distant said with a smile.
“Di-Distant! Focus!” Princess Celestia cried out.
“Shut up alright? I’m trying to think what next! Being stuck in this body has greatly reduced my power, my way of thinking has changed, and I can’t Meta right....” Distant said to frown. “I’ve been trying to reach my champion in Appleloosa, but either I can’t do it anymore in this form or he’s too far away.”
“Rainbow Dash is coming around!”
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Toph smiled, moving back a bit as she could feel Rainbow Dash was standing up. The cyan pegasus shook her head to the sides, opening her eyes slowly. She took a moment to feel her neck with her left hoof.
“What just happened?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Where’s Phoenix?!” She cried out, her eyes opening wide to look around.
Phoenix was nowhere to be seen
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“Oh thank you Celestia!” Twilight called out to hug Otacon. She moved to hug her partner and smiled. He released a sigh of relief. The others looked relieved as well.
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“You heard them! Start spreading the newspapers!” Nigel said to point at Scootaloo.
“Alright!” Eager and relieved that her hero was alright, the chicken-like pegasus hopped on her scooter.
“Head to the new hospital- A lot of them are working there still. Number 3- You go and hand one to the human adults. If this is all lies, they need to be warned about this. The rest of you, look around town.” All the other children smiled and begun to take stacks of papers to start passing them out.
“And take some to the mail ponies and maybe train stations. Back when Gabby Gums started, we had orders from other towns and newspapers...” Diamond Tiara mentioned as ink spilled on her mane. She frowned, but continued to work. Sweetie Bell, Nigel, and Tiara stayed behind to make more.
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“Shut up!” Distant shouted into his phone. “What about Phoenix?!”
“I- Don’t feel his heartbeat...” Toph said though the phone. “And the changeling is gone!”
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“Phoenix?” Sokka asked with his eyebrows raised. “What do you mean... Gone, Toph?” The others stopped celebrating, picking up their heads to look look at Sokka. Ash turned his head a second, turning to look over at the sound of running.
“What the hell?” Ash asked, spotting Kuki running over to them.
“Mr. Ash! Mr. Sokka! Mr. Dovahkiin!” Number Three called out. She stopped in front of them, holding up one of the papers. “Read the bottom!” Ash blinked once to take the paper from the hands of the child to start reading.
“What is it Ash?” Dovahkiin rushed out to look down.
“Sokka!” Ash rushed over to hand the paper to Sokka. He was frowning now, his teeth clenched. Sokka looked away to read the part Ash was pointing at. “Celestia ordered the attack on Nate?!?”
“What?!?”
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“What did you say?!” Otacon picked up his head at the news. Princess Celestia?!? Twilight Sparkles eyes shot open. Snake lowered his hand to his pistol and took his gun out to look around quickly. This was a perfect time to attack, with them all separated. Samus raised her arm cannon up at Snake’s response to prep it.
Something told her she would be using it on a pony real soon.
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“Phoenix is gone? Celestia tried to kill me?!” Nate cried out, phone back on his head.
“What did you say?”
Dan shot both eyes open to look at Pinkie Pie.
“Danny! You’re okay! I’m-“ Pinkie Pie stopped talking. Her hair was still flat, almost returning the normal poof. The ponies in the cabin started to move back in fear from Dan’s projected aura. Yellow started to form around his body as he floated up to stand.
“What the...” Nate turned around to look down at Dan. He was still upset at the news, but his face quickly lost color from his face to see Dan’s Brand glowing more intensely he had ever seen. Even his black shirt and hair had changed color to yellow.
“In a minute Pinkie Pie... Did you say- Princess Celestia?” Dan asked, his right hand held up to look at Nate’s face.
“According to Sokka,” Nate answered at he took the phone off to offer it to the team leader. Although his own heart had been beating as he fought changelings, he felt true fear now.
“I... Got something I need to do,” Dan moved his hand to push Nate away slowly to step out of the cabin and look in the sky. Changelings were still coming. “Soma! You’d better get inside...”
“Dan?! You’re Okay!” Soma smiled as he looked down at the end. “I- Did you just go super saiyan?”
“Soma, so help me get inside and protect the others-”
“Oh shit!” Soma jumped down to rush into the cabin and turned around to raise both arms in front of himself. “Final Guard! Everyone get behind me!” He wasn’t sure, but he could’ve sworn Dan had something black in his right hand.
“Soma? What’s going on?” Fluttershy finally managed to move, frozen in fear by Dan’s aura.
“THIS HAND OF MINE GLOWS WITH AN AWESOME POWER!”
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“Oh this is not good...” Distant picked his head up and threw the octo-phone from his face with his magic. “All Hope is lost...”
“What do you mean?” Terra asked to look down at the device at their feet.
“What happens when you lose hope?” The unicorn asked to look at Celestia.
“You go into despair,” Princess Celestia said to raise her eyebrow. What was going on?
“Or you lose yourself to rage....”