CRACK!!
A swift rush of air swept over the dying grass in the area as the previously unoccupied space was suddenly filled with the forms of three alicorns. Having just teleported to their first destination in a long journey ahead of them, they took a bit of time to observe their surroundings.
The large mouth of a cave stood ominously before them. Its pitch black orifice seemed to radiate the foulest of stenches and the most evil of magics. Flanking this cave opening on both sides were clusters of dead or dying trees and other shrubbery. The branches were intertwined and knotted, and when looked at in full, the sheer scale of lifelessness in this dead forest was realized.
The cave led into what looked to be small mountain. The sky was cloudy and appeared to swirl and coalesce around its peak, as if it signaled the entrance to another world or dimension. And that assumption was entirely true, for this was the entrance to Tartaros.
“How do you plan on convincing him to help us?” Terra asked Celestia solemnly.
“By giving him an offer he can’t refuse,” was her reply, a darker tone than most would come to expect from the Princess accompanying the words.
“Well I hope it’s a good one. By the way, isn’t there supposed to be a cerberus guarding these gates?” he inquired in a slightly accusatory manner.
“I too am wondering where the creature is. It is his job to keep anypony from leaving this place, and it is strangely quiet,” Luna added.
“Well there’s no use in complaining about it now. Let’s go, we’re wasting time,” Celestia said, effectively ending the conversation.
The three began their walk toward the cave. As they got closer though, a dense fog began to collect at their hooves. It rolled in from all directions and profusely poured out of the mouth of the cave. They stopped their gait and waited for something to happen, all of their senses on high alert.
Then they heard it: the deep growl of Cerberus. They immediately shifted into battle formation, ready for an attack. The growling continued, increasing in volume and echoing all around them. Then it stopped. Silence reigned for a terse seven seconds until a peculiar sound caught Terra’s ear. It was like whistling, but a bit different; almost like something falling. Looking up, his eyes widened in disbelief. There, falling through the sky as if he had jumped off of the summit of the mountain, was Cerberus.
“Up above!” Terra shouted as he bolted out of the way. Taking his queue, the other two quickly avoided the impact zone of the beast. They each turned to face the new threat that had literally come from the skies above.
“I’ll bind him and you two attack!” Terra shouted as he gathered the necessary energy to restrain the three headed dog. He focused the reach of his magic into the ground and found the roots of the nearby trees. Rather than telekinetically lifting them out of the ground and wrapping them around his target, Terra coaxed the roots into assisting him, which would provide a more stable and stronger restraint.
The roots grew up from the ground and began their attempt at binding the large guard dog. Surprisingly light on his feet, Cerberus nimbly dodged the first few swipes, but the advantage of numbers soon overwhelmed him. Wrapping around his legs, they forced him to the ground. Then, starting from the legs, the roots began to twist around his body, tightening with each pass around his body as they worked to restrain the slightest of movements and then anchoring themselves in the ground on either side.
It wasn’t long before Cerberus was rendered completely immobile. Taking their chance, Celestia and Luna fired their attacks at him. Hoping to subdue the beast, they weren’t trying to kill or destroy, merely incapacitate. When the spells hit Cerberus, his body fell limp and he was rendered unconscious. The three waited just a moment or two more before relaxing slightly while Terra released the bonds, mentally thanking the roots for their help.
They resumed their walk back to the entrance when they felt a sudden drop in the surrounding temperature. Looking back behind them, they were shocked to find that Cerberus was disappearing. Well, more like melting into a black goo that proceeded to spread out across the ground and split into smaller puddles of goo.
Each puddle began to writhe and transform into something new, before long seventy-two large hellhounds, all the size of an earth pony stallion, stood in a circle around the party of alicorns. Some of the most hellish looking eyes covered their bodies in varying sizes. Rows of sharp teeth dripping with some vile ooze could be seen as plain as the day Celestia brought as they opened their maws to let out a collective howl.
“Well, this should be interesting,” Terra stated with a bit of a smirk as the dogs circled and prepared to strike.
“Quite,” was Celestia’s curt reply.
“I hope one of you two has a good plan considering hellhounds are impervious to most magic,” Luna asked in an unamused tone.
“I do, but you two will have to fight it out on your own while I set it up,” Terra replied.
“Do what you must, but do it quickly,” Celestia said, already formulating strategies of her own.
“As you wish.”
The rust orange alicorn began to slowly back into the center of their formation. For each step he took, the combatants came forth just as much. When he stopped in the center, so too did the hellhounds stop their advance. Looking to both Luna and Celestia one last time, he put his plan into motion.
Terra began to sink into the ground beneath his hooves. He was in effect converting his physical form to something that was able to move through and with the earth. He could even meld himself with trees. In this way, he could hide indefinitely and never be detected, making for the perfect technique to set up a complicated trap.
Celestia and Luna knew very well that it would take too long and use up more power than they'd like to dispose of the many creatures before them. Hellhounds were known for their resistance to most magics. The only spells that would affect them were those that utilized fire and lightning.
The former was weak against them, but at least it had an effect. The latter was stronger, but they possessed an ability that made it next to impossible to hit them with it. But the time for action was now. The hounds were starting to close in and would soon attack.
“It has been a long time since we have had to fight together like this, sister,” mused Luna as she got into a more battle ready stance.
“I’m certain we can still hold our own here. It’s like learning to fly: you never forget the basics and can improvise when needed.”
“Well then, we better start remembering. Here they come.”
The hounds did indeed begin their assault as Luna indicated. The soft pat of paws on the ground grew to a small roar as they charged at the alicorns standing rear to rear. Growling and barking accompanied their concentric blitz and the distance was quickly covered.
However, the Princesses were ready for this and at the last moment they launched themselves into the air causing a pile up of the first thirty combatants. The rest of them, though, noticed the move in time to use their speed to jump into the air after them.
A loud pop resounding through the air marked the successful teleportation of the Princesses to outside of the surround attempt that was meant to smother them. Luna and Celestia now stood on opposite sides of the mass of writhing hounds and prepared to launch their initial attack.
With horns aglow, a wide spread of artificial lightning sped toward the immobile pile. There were only two types of arcane magic that could affect hellhounds: fire and lightning. That is to say though, they are the only ones that can do any sort of damage. Unfortunately, the hounds have a nasty ability to deal with the latter, and stronger, of the two.
It was now that this ability was invoked, and as the magic reached its destination, the pile quickly turned into a large cloud of what looked to be shadowy fog. The lightning merely passed through this gaseous mass and met in the middle.
The sisters quickly cut off the supply of energy for the spell as they had expected as much. The cloud of shadow was now spreading across the landscape like a thin mist. The Princesses knew what to expect next, but didn’t know when. What seemed a few tense minutes passed before anything else happened.
From the shadows of the forest’s trees a hound sprung forth at the Lunar Princess and sunk its teeth into the joint at which her wing connected to her body. For the pain that went shooting through her though, Luna didn’t so much as grunt at it. The hound was quickly flung to ground, but before a counter attack could be made, it disappeared back into the mist.
The battle raged on for another seven minutes in similar fashion. One or a few hounds would spring from the shadows or the mist covered ground and attack one or both of the Princesses. Bolts of lightning or waves of fire were launched in quick succession each time, but no contact was ever made.
When they thought the assault had lulled to something tolerable, forty-two hounds sprung from the ground at once. As the hellish dogs flew through the air, Celestia grimaced as she noted how separated she and Luna had become during the fight. There was no time for her to teleport and still save her sister. They would just have to endure the assault and retaliate quickly.
Twenty-four hounds fell on top of each Princess, each clawing and biting their way to doing harm to the alicorns. But the brief triumph lasted no longer than ten seconds as a blinding flash of orange and yellow light burst from the pile Celestia was held under. She emerged with her mane and tail aflame and the hounds immediately around her writhing in agony from the fire that burned their bodies.
Those hounds quickly put out the flames and returned to the mist. Celestia then turned her attentions toward the pile her sister was still under sent her flames to disperse the threat. Sensing what was coming, though, the hounds let their target be and returned to the ground as well.
A ball of white light the size of a foal in its adolescence was all that was present in the vacated spot. Though it didn’t take long for Luna to emerge from her protection without having sustained too much injury.
“We have to end this more quickly. When will Terra’s trap be ready?” Luna said while walking over to her sister.
“Hopefully it will be ready soon. The hounds are planning something.”
“Planning? What could they possibly be trying to organize?”
The answer was quick to reveal itself as all seventy-two hellhounds rose from the ground. The mist at their paws faded into nonexistence, but the ground didn't return to its normal state. On it was a large circle connected by the four outermost hounds at the cardinal positions. More and more lines began to be drawn inside this circle, forming a square, a four pointed star and other shapes.
Not having had any time to react, Celestia and Luna were beholden to whatever force was about to be placed against them. They expected to be bound, to be rendered incapable of resistance. But even when the magic circle was complete, nothing seemed to happen. Instead, each hound’s mouth opened wide, wider than they should have, and from them spewed insect-like creatures that either crawled or flew toward the Princesses.
The bodies of the the Princesses tensed up as they prepared for the attack. But as they tried to summon their energy, nothing but horror and confusion crossed their faces.
“Sister, I cannot use magic anymore! And from the looks of it, neither can you.”
“What do you mean by that, Luna?”
“Your mane and tail; they’re no longer flowing with your energy. And it seems mine have suffered a similar fate,” Luna noted having looked at her own mane and tail as she spoke.
“We don’t have time to be lamenting that we can’t use magic, we need to–”
Her order was cut short as her body was thrown to the ground. A second thump signaled that Luna had fallen as well. No amount of grunting or struggling seemed to do much and the insects swarmed above and around them.
“A gravity well,” Celestia managed to grunt out. “Well, we were wondering if we were going to be bound.”
“And now we’ll be devoured by some spawn of a Cerberus. Great.”
“We’ll think of some–”
For the second time, Celestia had been silenced unexpectedly, but this time, she could breathe a sigh of relief.
Massive roots of the trees that surrounded them burst from the ground beneath the hounds and disrupted the magic field they had created. The collective barks, yelps and snarls rang out in an oddly harmonic chorus as the roots wrapped around each hound individually. The ground cracked and groaned as they were all hoisted high into the air and brought back to the ground. As a result, another choral display came in the form of a multitude of sickening crunches from the bodies of the hounds.
Though they all appeared limp and defeated, the roots continued to squeeze their captured prey until yet more bones could be heard breaking. Celestia and Luna had just gotten back on their hooves when Terra returned from the ground directly in front of them.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. The Everfree Forest isn't very easy to talk to."
"Talk to?" Celestia inquired.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. The way my normal power over nature works is actually not power over it at all. I talk to the life of the planet and ask for its assistance. If it decides to help, great, if not, I'm still not anyone special enough to force it into helping. This is why it's not very practical as a means of attack. It could take a few minutes or a few hours for me to convince nature to help."
"So you left us not knowing when you'd be able to help? We could have been seriously injured!" Luna brushed her way past her sister and stood right in front the orange alicorn, her unpleasant gaze directed squarely into his eyes.
Terra merely smirked at her outburst and mockingly replied, "So, how's that bitten wing treating you?"
The question seemed to catch Luna off guard for a moment as she took a second or two to remember her injury. "Oh, it's healing up just fin—wait, no! That's not the point!"
"If you two are finished bickering, I believe we have someplace to be," Celestia stated with a deadpan voice. She turned to face the cave and begin walking but stopped when Terra still had something to say.
"Fine, just let me finish up here," Terra replied walking to the center of the tangle of roots. His horn lit with a signature forest green glow while he sat in the same spot for a full minute. When the time was up, he stood and walked back to where Luna and Celestia were. From their vantage point, though, the Princesses witnessed a bit of complex magic that actually managed to impress them.
A singularity of light hovered in the spot that Terra left. It began to expand, slowly at first, but growing in speed, both linear and angular. When it had grown to the size of a nearby tree, all light emanating from it ceased and spinning before them was what looked to be some sort of wormhole.
And indeed, that was exactly what it was. Dust and leaves and twigs and other debris slowly made their way toward the maw of the rotating disk, the suction increasing in power until the three alicorns had to put effort into not being pulled in too.
When Terra felt that things had progressed enough, the roots that held the apparently lifeless hellhounds uncoiled and sank back into the ground. Scraping noises were still clearly audible from the limp corpses sliding on the ground to be devoured by the anomaly. One-by-one they entered and it wasn’t very long before all seventy-two had been disposed of. The wormhole began to weaken and when it had died out, the Princesses were once again addressed by Terra.
“It’s always good to clean up your messes before you leave an area,” he chuckled as he walked past the two rulers into the cave. A brief look of confusion and amusement passed between them as they followed Terra’s lead.
The moment that they entered the mouth of the cave, a chill was sent through their bodies that forced a violent shudder to run through each of them, completely involuntary of their feelings or resolve. Everything echoed, from the dripping of condensed water to the soft pat of their hoofsteps. As they walked, they took note of the grotesque images that adorned the walls of the cave. They depicted ponies fighting off demons and other beings that couldn’t be properly described. One painting even showed a group of unicorns using unknown, astral magic to seal some beast long forgotten.
The further they went, the more descriptive the images became. As they neared their destination, they stopped before what seemed to be the largest mural of them all. It was unlike the others in that it had nothing to do with fighting off demons and other creatures. To a normal pony, it would have been nothing more than a picture of a black alicorn sitting atop a pile of skeletons as if it were his throne. To the three alicorns present, though, it marked the hidden entrance to a place mortals could not enter.
“Looks like we’re here,” Celestia remarked while surveying the wall in its entirety.
“Now, how do we get in?” Terra had moved to sit next to Celestia as he spoke and Luna was quick to stand by her sister’s side as well.
“Oh, that’s the easy part,” she replied while still staring directly at the wall in front of them.
“Alrighty then, I’ll leave it to you.” Terra then stood and walked to a safe distance behind the Princesses. They had both bowed their heads and closed their eyes in concentration, though it didn’t seem like they were channeling magic. In fact, they were releasing their magic.
Watching in slight shock and awe, Terra saw how the wall before him began to sink into the ground and revealed the goal of the first leg of their journey. The Gates of Tartaros, set into the stone as if the mountain itself was only raised to fit its shape.
Contrary to his expectations, Terra was surprised, and a bit relieved, that the gates were merely two large, black stone slabs with ivory rings hanging from where handles would be. Thick, wrought iron chains were draped in front of the doors, secured into the mountain on either side, ensuring the gates could not open completely.
“Terra, when we open the gates, we’ll need you to seal off the cave so nothing escapes. Can you do that?”
“Yes. I’ll even put up a barrier,” Terra replied with a smirk gracing his lips from the near absurdity of the question. “I’m ready, open the gates.”
The horns of the Princesses began to glow and the handles followed suit. One bathed in the pure, golden aura of the Solar Goddess, the other awash in the cool, midnight blue aura of the Lunar Mistress. They rose outward, and with a sound that could only be described as grating stone on stone, they slowly began to open.
With barely a crack having been made with which to walk through, all manner of ethereal being flew into the cave, swirling with a violent fervor expected of someone with claustrophobia being trapped in a sturdy box. Shrieks equally varied as the spirits that made them rang out in a cacophonous din. The gates continued to open until the doors were stopped by the chains at thirty degree angles, at which point the three alicorns, unphased by the chaos around them, resumed their trek.
When they entered the gates nothing but a wasteland of gray rock and sand was before them. It was flat as far as the eye could see, and certainly even beyond that. The ground crunched beneath their hooves, their ears were laid flat against their heads to lessen the sound of the howling wind. Most of all, it was cold, below freezing even. All those that thought Tartaros a pit of fire raging with the souls of the damned were absolute wrong.
With an unfurling of his wings, Terra took off in the heavy winds, wobbling greatly as tried to keep steady. He eventually reached a height where the wind was weaker and he look around, but it didn’t take long for him to find something.
In what looked to be but a mile or two ahead of the entrance, was an abyss as black as Sombra’s shadow, and then darker still. It was not a natural darkness, that much he was sure off. Terra’s best guess was that it was in this trench that they would find who they were looking for.
Terra angled downward into a dive to bring himself back to the gates where Luna and Celestia still stood. After landing and explaining what he found, the three set off for the abyss, preparing to fend off whatever got in their way.
Luckily, nothing got in their way. The terrain was still as barren as before, but now they stood at the edge of an abyss which seemed far larger than it had any right to be.
“How deep do you think it is?” Luna asked while peering over the side.
“There’s no telling, but I believe we’ll have to go down there,” Celestia replied.
“That doesn’t seem like a very pleasant experience,” Terra remarked.
“It certainly wouldn’t be, even for immortals such as yourselves,” a fourth voice added to which the three quickly turned their heads towards only to be shocked at who was now in their presence.
Standing just beside the three alicorns was the target of this first leg of their journey: the King of Tartaros, Mors Ascendo Sanguis. A black alicorn with a short, flowing mane of bone white. His tail would match as well were it not for the single stripe of what looked to be burgundy that ran through it. Other than his cutie mark, there wasn’t anything that particularly stood out. An artistic interpretation of a flame with a white, feathered wing on the right of it, and a leathery, black wing like those of bats to the left.
Terra and company had expected that much from his appearance, but it was the chains that draped him that caught their eyes. Thick and heavy-looking metal chains were wrapped around his neck, chest, barrel and withers. They dangled off the sides and fell to the ground to be joined by four other chains, each attached to his hooves. Each alicorn followed the trail the chains made behind the newcomer only to see that they went off into what seemed to be an eternity, attached to who-knows-what.
"Now, why have you come here? And why should I let you leave?" the alicorn stated with all the authority afforded to him as the King of the Underworld.
Now it was Celestia's turn to speak. Terra knew that whatever she planned on offering him had better be worth his while, or they could very well end up trapped in Tartaros with no hope of ever getting back out.
"I'll get straight to the point then. We are here because we need your help. The world is in grave danger of being taken over by Infinite Dreamer and our only hope is to reunite the alicorns of old to defeat him permanently. However, I realize that I was responsible for the protection of the shrines of the sealed alicorns, and one of those measures was to erase any memory I had of the locations and specific protections pertaining to each shrine.
"I know that I wouldn't take this measure without first telling some other equally immortal soul this information beforehand. I believe that being was you, Reaper Grimoire. We now need you to–"
"Enough,” he interrupted. “I'm well aware of the threat. But I cannot help you. For one, I am not Reaper Grimoire. I am Reaper Sanguine, his successor."
"What? When, and how?" Celestia asked with her usual sense of authority.
"Some two hundred and fifty years ago, thanks to a certain Alicorn of Nature, Grimoire underwent the regeneration process. When your predecessor, Terra, figured out a way to force the regenerative process, she ran into one very important complication. In order for her spell to work, she would need the permission of the Alicorn of Death & the Afterlife.
"So, she came to him with a proposal in order to persuade him into allowing her to use the spell. It initially failed, until she used her cunning to get at his emotions. Grimoire had been imprisoned here for millennia and had lost his connection to power from war. He was tired of living the same day over and over with no hope of anything changing. The one time anything different ever happened was when you, Celestia, came to give him the very information you now seek. However, on that day you refused to release him from his bonds, and in a way, he held that against you.
"And so, Terra III offered to teach him her new spell in exchange for his permission to use it. In his moment of depression, he gave in. Terra went off and some days later used her spell, resulting in the birth of her successor one year later. It was still several years before Grimoire used the spell, but the fact is that he did, and I was created soon after."
"And now you have been forced to bear his curse without any say in the matter,” Luna finished for him.
"That is correct."
"Please, Sanguine. We must know what it was I told Grimoire. Will you help us?" Celestia asked with not so much of a hint of pleading in her voice. It almost wasn’t a question.
"The obvious question is 'what will I get in return'?"
"If you give us the information, we will relieve you of your curse," she offered.
"Do you take me for a fool, Celestia? I do have all of the memories of Grimoire, and they tell me that under no circumstances am I to trust what you promise me."
"Be reasonable, Sanguine. This is much larger than some dispute had thousands of years ago. I am offering you freedom, in exchange for nothing more than information."
"I'm sorry, Celestia. In this case, I have to trust my instincts."
Growing weary of the back-and-forth that didn’t seem to be leading anywhere, Luna jumped in with an attempt to speak to whatever morals Sanguine might have. "You would sentence the world to devastation? On a whim influenced by a grudge? How could you be so selfish? How can you–"
"Luna, that's enough. There's no need to get upset," Terra said, intervening before the situation got out of hoof. Turning his attention to Sanguine, Terra proceeded to take over the negotiations. "Sanguine, I understand your concern and it is undoubtedly justified. What could we do to get you to help us?"
"Release me first, then I will give you what you need."
"How can we be sure you will keep your word?"
"You cannot, just as I cannot be sure you will keep yours."
"Then I have another proposal for you. Together, you and I will undergo an oath that will bind our beings together, and in this way we will have to trust each other to keep our promises."
Sanguine seemed to pause at that, giving actual consideration to what Terra was suggesting. "What did you have in mind?"
Terra turned his attention to the solar princess as she would be an integral part of his plan. "Celestia, I want you to perform the Solar Vow you used to make your soldiers swear in times of old."
"What!?" Celestia exclaimed, not meaning to be so loud and invariably dropping her regal demeanor. "Terra, you cannot possibly be insisting on putting your life on the line for him?"
For Terra, there was no question of what his duty to the world entailed. He wasted no time in answering, "I am. I'm one hundred percent certain about this. Will you perform it?"
"Sister, what is he talking about? I do not recall you having the Guard swear any oath to you?"
Hanging her head in a rare show of shame and guilt, Celestia took her time in answering her sister’s inquiry. She had never really wanted to reveal how vulnerable she became after having to seal away her sister for a thousand years. After a minute and a half of silence, she spoke.
"It was after you were sealed away as Nightmare Moon. As traumatic an experience it was, I still had a nation to run, and I was admittedly paranoid about being betrayed. So I created an oath that when broken, had very serious consequences. Should any soldier break their vow, they would… violently explode with a fraction of the power of the sun."
Luna could only look on with a face that belied her sadness at having been the cause of such misfortune. Though the sisters made amends long ago, the pain still hung in her mind and heart. It outweighed the shock she just experienced from finding out her normally understanding and benevolent sister once forced her guards not into swearing an oath to her, but to accept a curse that resulted in such a horrible end. Her slight melancholy was quickly broken as the negotiations continued.
"And it is this oath which Terra is suggesting I perform between him and Sanguine."
"Actually, I want you to put a variation on it. Instead of the one who breaks the oath suffering the consequences, I want you to make it so that in either event—the event that I break my part of the oath or the event where Sanguine breaks the oath—I will be the one to take full responsibility."
“Terra, do you realize what it is you are saying?” Celestia said now with a more accusatory tone than anything else. “Why would you trust him to not break his word and leave you for dead?”
“I have my reasons Celestia, and even in this situation, you should be more trusting. It looks rather unbecoming when a ruler that sent her student away to learn about friendship seems to be ignoring a key component of it.”
The princess had no response to that. She only stood there, staring at Terra and contemplating what to do. In the end, she wasn’t left with very many options, the best of which was going along with his plan.
“Fine. I’ll go along with this but, I hope you know what you’re doing.” Celestia took a deep breath and began channeling her magic. “Alright, Terra and Sanguine, position yourselves here in front of me, if you please. When you are ready Terra, speak the oath, and I shall bind the consequences to you alone.”
“What do you say, Sanguine? Will you accept this offer?”
“Though I still feel uneasy about trusting you, a chance to be free of this place is worth it. I accept.”
“Excellent,” Terra said as he moved to the designated area. Sanguine followed quickly, positioning himself just beside Terra as they both stood before Celestia. “Do you, Mors Ascendo Sanguis, King of Tartaros and Alicorn of Death & the Afterlife, swear to assist us in the quest of permanently stopping the plans of Infinite Dreamer in any way you can in exchange for freedom from your curse?”
“I do.”
“And I, Terra Omnes Vivat IV, Alicorn of Nature, Structure & Existence, do swear to uphold my oath of releasing you from your prison in exchange for your help. Celestia, make it so.”
“By the power of the sun that is under my influence and subject to my will, I make this contract into a Solar Oath, where Terra Omnes Vivat shall receive punishment in any event of this oath being broken.”
At that, two rays of light shot into the bodies of the alicorns making their promises. The process was quick and painless. Though Terra and Sanguine could now feel the power of the sun deep inside them, ready to explode at a moment’s notice.
Terra turned to Sanguine then and began to gather magic in his horn, preparing a spell he had been composing since he saw the chains that bound the alicorn to this world. He would need the knowledge and experience of his predecessors to perform the spell, but he was confident that it work without any problems.
Rather than some brilliant display of power with flashy lights and the ground shaking, the chains simply began to melt and dissolve around Sanguine. Within minutes, he was free.
“Thank you, Terra. You have no idea what this means to me.” Sanguine allowed a little bow of his head to accompany his words as the group turned around to leave Tartaros and begin their search anew.
Celestia and Luna ushered the raging spirits still in the cave back to where they came from and closed the doors once more. Terra then lifted his barrier and unsealed the cave so they could leave.
Once outside, Terra turned to the three-headed dog that had been defeated earlier and released him from his imprisonment. But once he turned back to his compatriots, he was met with nothing more than a look of pure disdain and anger from the Princess of the Day, and the sight of the Princess of the Night staring at the spot where Sanguine had just teleported away.