//------------------------------// // Uncontainable // Story: [Forlorn Ascension]|[Rites of Dominion] // by Desrium //------------------------------// When faced with such enormous power wielded by something which intended to bend the galaxy to its will, Phineas almost believed the chimera when it promised his demise. Almost. A single sliver of doubt which made its presence known at the back of his mind, which then traveled down his spine in a full-body shudder beneath his armor. Underneath the yellow screens of his helmet his eyes had widened, staring up at what the chimera had become. He had become the epicenter of fury, a star made out of green, baneful fire warped into the shape of a sphere many feet in diameter, bolts of lightning arcing around him in a terrifying display. The sheer heat the hybrid gave off was baking; as duly noted by the environmental sensors in Phineas' suit. All the while, there was this rumbling in the room, as if the very air was vibrating to the point where it was causing the command room to quake, a low permeating growl that emanated from every square inch of the room. It was maddening, and discouraging to say the least about the escalating levels of the chimera's energies. What could a regular pony hopelessly displaced in time do to such a menace? A lot, Phineas decided as he hardened himself, his look of shock turning to that of fierce determination that his helmet did well to mask. He sprung onto his hooves, defiant as always as he cemented his stance. The room's lights dimmed and burst in the raging storm that was the chimera, leaving only the tyrannical viridian light to cast the dark away. Phineas' shadow extended out behind him and crawled up the wall. It wavered and flickered with the dancing flames surrounding the chimera, enclosed in the aura of its power. "Pony," he started to say with a disembodied voice that was like the rumbling, seeming to come from every direction at once. It had a deep and gravely quality that undermined any eloquence that the Hoof-Talon leader might have possessed. "do you understand, at the end, the pointlessness of your fighting?" The voice was that of a monster, a demon by any other name, a being with a soul as black as the scalded skin which clung to its accursed body. Phineas remained silent. There was no retort, no clever quip to be made. The time for that had come and gone a long time ago. As he stared up at the advanced hybrid within its corroding ball of wrath, he thought of the Iopteryx, and how he felt bathed in the oppressive light it shined, like an ant under a magnifying glass. This was very much the same, facing a power many times his greater and practically drowning in a pool of unimaginable danger. But he did not bend, nor did he break. He held his ground with his resolve driving him on. "No. What I do understand is: I must prevent you from rebuilding your foundations,and I intend to do just that." *** The chimera's lunge came without warning. With many alarms and alerts appearing on his HUD, Phineas fired up his jetpack and sent himself across the room. He twisted about and came to a hover, looking at where the chimera was, half embedded in the floor. Spreading out from around the ball of deadly magic was a ring of glowing hot metal. Even after the chimera shot back into the air, the heat continued to march onwards, causing the metal to droop and drip away to lower decks as hissing slag. Phineas deftly evaded the chimera's second charge with a well timed burst of his boosters, strafing out of the way and coming to a hover while the chimera simply burned through the wall, disappearing into the molten hole he left. The green glow disappeared from the inner hull momentarily, but the white spot that formed underneath Phineas a fraction of a second later was his only sign that the chimera was coming at him from beneath. A geyser of emerald fire gushed upwards with a shower of slag to boot and Phineas cried out as it rippled across his shielding. He tumbled out of the hellfire, clumsily adjusting his thrusters' attitudes as the fire gripped him, burning away at the magical barrier until it finally shattered into specks of light. He went down at speed because he couldn't slow himself down quickly enough and lost his balance on landing, metal hooves screeching as they scraped across the floor before he ended up rolling and sliding to a halt against the opposite wall. It was becoming a reoccurring event apparently. To compare the rising temperature to an oven would be insulting. It was more like the magma chamber of a volcano by now and getting hotter still. Phineas knew he was not long more for this battle as it was on its current course. The fact it hadn't even been five minutes and he hadn't even touched the chimera since his grenade gambit was troubling at the very least. "How much more can this suit take...? he wondered, its homeostasis settings struggling to keep its wearer at safe levels. He had to get out of the not-so-figurative line of fire before the armor gave out on him! But he also had to make sure the chimera would meet his end. Struggling back onto his hooves, Phineas went over what he knew so far: the chimera's desire to punish him had been replaced with a maddened lust for vengeance. No longer was he some prisoner to be made into the chimera's toy, but an enemy to be killed without discrimination of any means... excluding anything that would have resulted in his complete obliteration. As reviled as he was by the chimera, the Hoof-Talon needed his body for the next phase of his plan. A plan that depended on the very spaceship that he was ripping apart in his anger... Phineas smiled a smug smile. "I may not make it out of this alive, but at least I'd die happy knowing I fucked you over!" And he knew just how to do it, too. The silver stallion found his second wind in the blistering heat and dashed over to the main flight computer, pressing buttons like mad. His hooves clattered against the keys noisily. "What are you doing?" the chimera's omnipresent voice growled. "Well if you can't beat them, deorbit the fucking spaceship and let it splat planetside!" Phineas shouted. The growling deepened into a hellish howling. "NO!" The chimera burst forth from the slope leading down to the viewing platform consumed in a flaming twister that burned the ceiling. Phineas was thrown back for the umpteenth time by the line of explosions that ran up the diagonal to the controls, the instrumentation panel turning into smoking shrapnel. "No flight computer, no problem..." The pony flipped upright and proceeded to speed away from the chimera, panting heavily. The hybrid's ethereal roar made the room tremble with its terrifying might. Thin spidery lines spread across the main viewing screen, growing larger and branching out with each meandering crack. With a sudden gust of wind, the screen was expelled out into the vacuum, along with all the debris and bodies that littered the room. Phineas engaged the magnetic clamps and held steadfast against the singing airflow. Not even a minute later, the suction gave way to the eternal silence. While certainly not frigid, the room no longer felt like the middle of an incinerator. The blackened walls glimmered in the chimera's sickly radiance, the fires surrounding him waving slowly like a fabric suspended. This fight was still far from over. *** Phineas dove down the hole melted into the floor as green flames and electricity streamed overhead, a cascade of brilliant light shining down the hole before it faded with the fires' dissipation. His jetpack sent him through the room on the level below with great swiftness, but the chimera was hot on the stallion's tail, a blazing trail left in his wake. Phineas stopped at the door and spun around to face the chimera, who belched a torrent at him. The silver stallion raised his Harmonizer and projected a field, a dome of light blue magic materializing and corralling the fires into the center. Phineas pushed the inferno back, but the chimera powered through with a mental barrage, dispersing the flames and tearing the door from the wall. When the flames cleared however, the hybrid found Phineas on the floor unharmed within a magical field and himself being subjected to another gust as the section ahead depressurized. The fires rose and released a tremendous flash as the Hoof-Talon bellowed, parting the wall of air around him and swiping his claws at Phineas, sending scythes of energy crashing against his bolstered barrier. "If only you could make me teleport!" he thought, gripping his Harmonizer for dear life. He forced the field outwards - pushing the hybrid back a matter of inches at most- and shot off into the next room. The otherworldly screaming followed him, the chimera's energy causing clusters of sparks and fire to discharge from all around him. "Spell-core... Spell-core...!" Phineas' thoughts raced, Magi-Flux Harmonizer held in one hoof while he juggled between reading his PDA's projection of the spaceship's layout and actually navigating its twists and turns. He blasted doors with his Harmonizer, overriding their locking mechanisms and subsequently depressurizing the zones ahead. After passing through, said zones were mauled by the chimera's rampant power. The next hallway he had to clear was one that he thought seemed familiar when he saw it on the hologram. He found out why when -upon overriding the door- a whole squad of grenade victims were propelled at him. He dodged the corpses and hurried on while the chimera simply boomed and vaporized them as they neared, glowing dust flying past in the aftermath. Phineas turned the corner of the T intersection and flew down to the maintenance entrance he discovered before he was captured. Without any debris to obstruct it and his Harmonizer at the ready, sliding the door open was no trouble at all. There was no respite for the true problem though, for as soon as Phineas darted into the tunnel, the walls started to crumple around him, the groaning accompanied by bangs and thuds and all manner of electrical sounds as wires snapped and tore behind the distorting panels. The door on the other side of the tunnel flew open with a flash of light and Phineas threw himself out of it, landing on three hooves and skidding around to see the walls fuse together. He was breathing hard when he thought, "And that's why they had us running laps at the academy!" A faint tremor running through the Spell-core chamber foretold what the chimera was doing next. The compressed walls started to pull apart, regaining their rough shape but retaining dents and large gaps in the plating. All manner of internal components hung out from these breaks, dangling limply in a long line. "THE END AWAITS!" The hybrid's roar was accompanied by a telekinetic shove, which Phineas countered by hunkering down and enabling his clamps. "Ha!" he yelled. "I fly when I want to fl-" With a yelp, Phineas' boosters flared to life and sent him out of the way of the flaming plume that funneled into the tunnel and exploded out into the chamber. A spread of fire was left at the exit, dancing emeralds reaching for the ceiling of the Spell-core chamber, surrounding the chimera who stared Phineas down. The cauterized hybrid rose from his crouched stance, heaving bestially as he let out a guttural growl. No longer was he surrounded by his green aura, or the arcane fire which now raged elsewhere in the ship. "You... you almost had me, pony." The chimera spoke in his "normal" voice, as cracked and hoarse as it was now. "Almost?" Phineas replied, cocking his head. "You have taken advantage of my anger... and as a result I nearly became the architect of my own failure..." The chimera started to chuckle again, his humor as unsettling as ever. "It's not too late, you know. If you could do me a favor and burp on that Spell-core behind me, that'd be just dandy!" Phineas gestured to the orb of energy contained by the spinning pylons with his Harmonizer. "It has become apparent that excessive force is not the way to deal with you, pony. Perhaps you are not as dim as I make you out to be." "Y'think?" Phineas deadpanned. "I understand now that you are no regular Equestrian, pony. You are but a specter of the past, brought to face me by the God," the chimera said with a strange sage-like tone. "... Almost half right?" Phineas said, cocking his head in the other direction. "You are my ultimate test, and I have learned that victory is not assured by power alone. Join me, and together we will claim rightful domination of this galaxy!" Phineas floated out his hover platforms and opened fire. The chimera snarled, and held out a hand, collecting the bolts with a magical field of his own. The bolts orbited his fingers in the glowing aura enclosing his hand. "I respect my God... I praise my God... but its... trial... wears my patience thin..." The magical bolts devolved into a mist and the chimera let them waft away in the room. "Trust me, I want this to be done and over with as much as you do!" Phineas pointed the Harmonizer into his toolkit and pulled out his last grenade in a magic field. "If you won't do it-!" Phineas pointed the Harmonizer toward the Spell-core. Just like that, the chimera sprung into action, unhindered at all by the damage done to him. He spun on a heel after dashing over to Phineas with but a few large strides, one clawed foot hurtling for his face. The pony ducked and rolled out from under it and the chimera spun again, this time its tail soaring at the silver stallion. Phineas hopped over it and activated his jetpack before twisting around in the air and bucking the chimera in the side of its torso, causing it to wheeze. The hybrid swatted Phineas a foot or so away with a backhand then struck like a viper with its long neck, jaws fully opened. Phineas got him with an uppercut with his free hoof however, and while the hybrid was dazed he grabbed the head and leveled the grenade with the chimera's mouth. "Bite on this, you Hoof-Talon son of a b-!" The chimera roared, expelling a puff of arcane fire then thrashed, throwing off Phineas' hold. It then stomped forward, claws swinging, threatening to cleave the silver stallion apart. He jetted away and opened fire with the rifles, bolts ripping through the hybrid's charred flesh pointblank. The chimera's horn glowed and Phineas found himself locked in the chimera's mental grip once more, a wicked smile on his face. Startrot couldn't repel the magic with his Harmonizer! "Oh, such valiance... but as I said, ultimately pointless. Do not worry, when the tale of this final battle is told to the reborn Polymerization I will be sure to make the legions proud to bear your essence within them!" "It's... not... over yet!" Phineas snarled. "How ironic. Isn't that what the Last said before you dispatched them?" Phineas was fuming again. Tears welled up in his eyes, tears bitter from his anger. It couldn't end like this! He would have rather died against the last brigade of Hoof-Talon soldiers than at the claws of their leader, held at the wrong end of an ironic twist! "You...you...!" With all of his willpower, Phineas stopped projecting the field suppressing the grenade, which was then held by the hybrid's own. In the same moment he generated another, one which wrapped around himself and neutralized the chimera's telekinetic grip. "What is thi-!?" "You hybrid son of a bitch!" Phineas bellowed, jetting forwards and then swinging his entire body around, bashing both of his rear hooves into the chimera's head, a direct buck to his last eye. The Hoof-Talon howled, grasping at it with his hands. The grenade fell to the floor, tinking against the paneling. Its casing was ejected, and with mere seconds left before it detonated, Phineas rushed over to it, plucked it up in a suppressive field then launched it towards the Spell-core containment area. "When Phineas Startrot says it's not over yet, it's not fucking over!" the pony shouted as he jetted down the maintenance hallway. Trailing him was the sound of the chimera's guttural brutality, its aura blinding as it exploded into existence again. The Spell-core only added to this spectacular light show as it went critical, the entire ship shaken by its catastrophic failure. Before long at all, the entire ship would follow suit. It was time for Phineas Startrot to return to his shuttle...