//------------------------------// // Trinity Pt. 4: Emergence // Story: The Arising Cartoon Pony // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// A painful feeling seized Kazooie’s chest but she didn’t stop ripping through the remnants of the mechanical defenses. After turning the next Corridor she stopped and smiled while gasping for breath. “Kazooie why are you gasping for breath if there isn’t any toxic gas here?” Banjo put a paw on her shoulder and even Honey looked a bit worried. Ristar gave her a questioning look, since that was clearly an unusual action for certain video game characters. “Did you take on too many out of world abilities? Power ups and items shouldn’t do something like that to you.” Ristar asked worriedly taking a few steps away from her. “No it’s not that, I’d know if my file went corrupt… Screwball, something is very wrong with my daughter. ” Once she caught her breath she walked over to a cardboard box lying on the floor picked it up and started running past the others. “No time like the present, my little girl and her friends are in danger!” “Whoever just hurt Screwball is boned if they aren’t dead already.” Banjo said idly and started after Kazooie with a giant flying bee and the shooting star warrior picking up their pace after the red bird on roller blades. “Weren’t we running into a place that’s about to explode to find some guy named Chaos?” Ristar said as it had been barely a minute since they separated from the ponies. “You’ve obviously don’t understand the simple chaotic nature of the cardboard box.” Banjo stated simply as they came upon a totally wrecked hallway that, judging by the incredibly amounts of damage to the coding, even the SA-X could have caused all of it. Kazooie was on a warpath again. At the front of the building with the two currently saddened ponies, they didn’t even get a time to mourn Screwball as they were immediately hit with another tornado which Derpy shouldered for Lyra. She glared angrily at Storm Eagle and Owl, was there was no grace period for these monsters! Derpy immediately launched at Storm Eagle; Lyra tried to stop her and then turned to Storm Owl as a storm of feather bullets shot at her. Concentrating hard she caught several of the bullets in her grasp while avoiding the rest of the assault and shot one back at Storm Owl causing his barrier to pop and it was followed by a green orb flung in her direction, causing her to scramble out of the way of it while holding on to three of the capture feather bullets. Behind them against the barrier shoved there by a tornado that was launched at Lyra while Derpy was dodging four green orbs of destruction, a streak of red led straight to the unmoving pink, purple and white body. A vile red energy started to spread along the corpse of the presumably dead pony. The energy touched the boss barrier field and it started to warp to a crimson red color as it started to erupt from the body the entire boss battle field started turning the color and started becoming more and more visible. Derpy flew into Storm Eagle and slugged him with her hooves twice; he tried to fire an egg at the ground to send more jet birds at her as he kicked her back a foot. Instead she flew in and clamped his beak shut with her hooves causing four internal explosions to go off damaging him. In reflex he caught Derpy off guard and she was blown roughly into the invisible barrier above them by a tornado. As soon as she was close to the ground she flipped her body so that her front hooves were pointing downwards and bounced backwards off of them when she hit the ground avoiding being clawed open by Storm Eagles flying kick. Lyra couldn’t help Derpy as she was too busy dealing with Storm Owl, she had a righteous fury going on inside her, but she still couldn’t find the killer instinct that Derpy obviously had buried somewhere in all of her cheery bubbly veneer. It was the first time she saw another pony be killed in front of her and worst yet it was a pony she knew. One she might have been looking forward to having a nice relatively calm friendship with given that pony saved her life. Lyra was considering it lucky that the mechanical Owls more physical bullets were capable of being grabbed by her magic, his energy ball attack thing however was something she didn’t want to be hit by as even the smaller version looked deadly. Given that ponies were biological the robots attacks were actually exceedingly lethal when compared to special metal armored maverick destroyers, she'd be right in the assumption. She rotated the three bullets she caught around her horn to launch them at higher speeds when Owls barrier was down and it seemed to do more damage to him from what she could tell of the life bars currently placed in her constant periphery. Speaking of which something was happening to the frown faced bar with Screwballs head under it, it started warping and the face changed and the health bar started to fade away. A shockwave of energy rolled over the four fighting combatants and they all look around them as the swirling vortex of red finished appearing around them, the regular boss barrier was no longer in place anymore. Both Storm Eagle and Owl backed off their respective opponents looking to the one that Storm Owl had killed not a minute or two ago. The blood on the ground was flowing towards two inky black hooves and slowly started forming into five fingered claws and looking up to the head of the creature they all saw to glowing red eyes where there was once happy spiraling pupil backed by a bright purple color. There was no mane anymore just a flowing pit of darkness from the head and the tail end. There weren’t even facial features or even a single orifice in that inky creature’s mess, the only thing reminiscent of Screwball left was that the creature stood on four legs, the front two covered in claws made out of blood. As she stood up on her hind legs with dark red light bleeding from where her eyes used to be, Lyra blinked and suddenly had a claw in her face as Screwball had covered the distance between them in a single second. Lyra wonder what made Screwball stop, maybe she recognized her? That was likely, except for the fact that she had gotten her killed mostly because she spent the first part of this fight whimpering. It was then that Lyra realized that Screwball was struggling to push her claws into her throat from her right through a barrier of golden light and was that a banjo playing? It was then that Lyra realized the only reason she was alive was because of Screwballs mother was currently straddling her, quickly dismissing the icky feelings of this situation she looked back at the tightly clenched beak and nervous green eyes. “Move it… you spoony… bard…” Kazooie grumbled under the stress of holding the blood red claws back, right now their combined weight was the only reason why her Wonder Wing was holding up to the stress of the pressure being exerted on the shield. “I’m not spoony!” Lyra said leaning her head back, turning it further and just barely avoiding it being cleaved clean off her neck. Kazooie released her Wonder Wing causing the creature to lose balance and be blown backwards by the force of her wings flexing outwards. Lyra looked on as an inch of her mane fell to the ground and she felt a slight pain in her neck, reaching up with her hoof it and to her horror it came away from her neck with blood. “It’s just a scratch. Also saved you a life, you owe me!” Kazooie said jovially as she jumped off of the pony and in front of her as the creature that was once Screwball stood up again. In a blink it crossed the distance where Kazooie stopped its claws from cleaving into her as she diverted its attack and took a grazing hit to her shoulder. “Gah… what the…” Kazooie reached up to her left shoulder and her right wing came away with blood, which should be impossible given video game character usually don’t bleed. Kazooie’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks as her mind rapidly went through the motions of analysis of what just happened to what it had just done. “Oh crap, quick you two, kill tweeter dumb and other tweeter dumb and don’t let that thing kill them before either of you do!” “Why not, she seems to be doing a good job of it herself and besides ponies are not exactly the best at killer instinct.” As Lyra pointed out as Screwball was attacking Storm Owl by launching from the swirling red walls that now surrounded them. Owl had dodged the first leap, but the creature immediately latched on to the opposite wall and launched herself at his back only to be blown to the side by a tornado into another wall which she made a growling noise at Storm Eagle from the where she clung. “Well you better learn how to use combo breakers fast and do it before I have to finish her off.” Kazooie finished this statement by blasting the altered Screwball off the wall with a grenade egg and the pony creature landed on all fours in front of Kazooie. The creature started to stalk forward her body wavering with each step with a seemingly narrowed look in its eyes. Kazooie Vs. ????????? (The Pillows – Advice – music plays.) “Come on now; please don’t make me hurt you.” It blinked right into Kazooie’s face and she heard three rapid beeps within that span of time and grabbed at its ankle with her right wing as it swung the claws at an unnerving speed at her. Her wing was faster. Kazooie punched it in the gut twice with her left wing, threw an uppercut knocking its head back then elbowed the creature harshly onto its back. It rolled and was immediately on Kazooie who tilted her head down and to the left slight catching its right set of claws with the edge of her beak that sent sparks flying into the air and quickly riposted. Having knocked the creature off balance, Kazooie quickly wrapped both her wings around its arms and threw a sharp kick straight into its belly. It gripped its claws on Kazooie’s wings causing her to cry out as blood spurted where the claws gripped her; she quickly returned the agony with a head bash and then followed it up by viciously kicking it in the groin. This only stunned the creature for a moment, it staggered backwards and then charged forward. Another series of rapid beeping sounds was heard as it thrust both its bloody clawed hooves forward. Kazooie stepped to the left and quickly threw her now quite injured left wing around its neck and then with a jerk sent it spinning to the ground onto its back where she started to rapidly stomp at it with both her talons with full force. After a moment of this she then kicked it hard sending it bouncing off the new barrier wall and into the air. She leapt up after it and then with a flip, she hit it in the chest with a fierce axe kick sending blood flying from the body as it slammed into the ground and bounced back up to meet Kazooie. Several red splotches were seen spreading along its spine. Kazooie closed her eyes and wrapped her body around it and the body was upside down when she did this, the three beeps signified another painful moment for it. Kazooie threw her right wing out harshly sending them spinning as they fell towards the ground. The ground shook as Kazooie leapt backwards out of the resulting dust cloud from her attack and immediately following her was the creature; its neck had turned a sickly red color. She quickly pulled its double claw thrust into another grapple and then pushed it away and jumped backwards to avoid the large green orb that flew at them. Taking a side glance to the other ponies fighting Kazooie caught a quick glimpse at how they were doing. Derpy was really laying into storm Eagle the best she could, he may be able to dive fast but his flight speed and maneuverability was worse than Storm Owls. Derpy’s hits might have been doing very little damage but it was adding up with each buck and strike. Lyra on the other hand just seemed to be avoiding shot after shot of green orbs once Storm Owl stopped firing his feather bullets at her, well so much for boss AI stupidity and it didn’t seem like the pony could figure out a way to hurt him as she had a confused look on her face as she threw herself to the side. Kazooie quickly ducked and turned her attention back to the creature that just shot over her head and had to dodge roll out of the way to the left of a green orb of energy from Storm Owl as he was starting to target other opponents as well. The creature was suddenly running along the crimson barrier wall and leapt at Derpy’s exposed back and was blown away from striking the flying pony with an ice egg courtesy of Kazooie, it was only momentarily taken out of action. This distracted the blonde mare allowing Storm Eagle to launch an egg out of his mouth towards the floor pointed in Kazooie’s direction. Lyra looked to the right, smiled slightly and caught the small jet birds in her magic as they tried to home in on Kazooie as they passed by her. She immediately brought her horn back and slung one around to blow back Storm Owl as he was about to unleash his tornado attack again stunning him out of being able to do it for a while. “You bumbling buffoon don’t use physical projectiles around that nasty green thing!” Lyra glared at the upper crust bird robot that ignored her intense stare and fired another green sphere of deadly energy at Derpy. Derpy caught the orb in the corner of her vision, corkscrewed around a tornado and Eagles attempt to kick her to grab him from behind with her front hooves. Flapping her wings twice she pushed him into the path of the orb and she promptly kicked off of him as the orb struck home causing Storm Eagle massive amounts of damage and his health was depleted down to a fourth of its maximum capacity. “Whose side are you on, you twit!” Eagle yelled at Owl before he got one of his own jet birds to the back of his head draining his already short life bar down even further as some robot masters were weak against their own weapons at times. The other fight continued as the creature slung her right claw upward and Kazooie leaned back letting the claw scrape against the bottom of her beak in another shower of sparks. She twisting around and drew it sharply into both of the creatures hind legs causing it to fall down on to its side. Kazooie followed it up by cold cocking it with her right wing and it bucked her in the legs sending her to the floor in pain. She swiftly rolled out of the way and was back on her feet as it threw its left claw down on where her neck used to be getting its left arm stuck in the ground. “Falcon… PUNCH!” The creature whipped around its tail end and used its gaseous tail to block Kazooie’s attack fully without a problem and that boggled Kazooie for a moment. Kazooie had to step back as it threw up a hind leg and a spike of blood shot out of the hoof nearly spearing her, its back right hoof was now covered in blood red splotches. The blood spear receded and the creature ripped its arm out of the ground and lunged at Storm Eagle who was trying to dive attack Kazooie. Kazooie grabbed Storm Eagle by his leg within three rapid beeps and whipped him around slamming the creature into the nearby barrier wall and then spun one more time and threw him spiraling at Storm Owl. Storm Owls life bar was no longer looking so hot after being struck by another robot that wasn’t a maverick. Hearing a scream Kazooie turned to Lyra. The creature was already up and attacking as Lyra ducked back avoiding her horn getting clipped and fully ducked under a second claw swipe. Running forward Kazooie fired two normal eggs and then farts out six grenade eggs as she went past the green pony. Lyra caught the volatile bouncing green object in her magic and slung one at Storm Owl who had dodged out of the way of the projectile that caused a moderately large explosion, giving a smirk the pony timed another throw and struck home. Storm Eagle was preoccupied with the CQC that Derpy was dishing out as his health bar was almost finished emptying out, only a few more hard strikes. Derpy twisted around several larger shots from Storm Owl while being chased by Storm Eagle, he was not happy that he was losing to a biological. All the while Kazooie was smirking as even if she didn’t seem to be doing any damage to the creature, it was a really fun fight. Aside from the fact that every time the creature managed strike her it made her bleed lives instead of health, she threw up her wing and blocked a strike and kicked out and then fluidly started to pirouette straight into the creature knocking it back with several rapid strikes before finishing her clockwise spin with a hard left straight. The creature was knocked away from the other combatants as Kazooie had noted Storm Eagle and Owl were about to explode considering their life bars were in the red at the moment, she had to make sure they didn’t go near this thing. She farted out a few battery eggs in Lyra’s direction before she charged the creature. They both grappled each other at the same time wing feathers between claws and struggled to push each other down into a vulnerable position. Kazooie smirked, kicked off the ground and flipped over the creature still holding its arms and when she was back to back with it she pulled hard causing a sickening series of cracking noise to be heard and then she released it and pushed away. Turning around Kazooie watched as its arms flopped uselessly for a moment before a second series of cracking sounds was heard. The limbs turned red and were working again as it turned to Kazooie to seemingly glare at her. A rapid series of explosions was heard off to the side, Kazooie turning to look at a blast of glowing orbs exploding outward much to the mystified blonde pony’s gaze who suddenly blinked out of existence. She must have been able to use Storm Eagles weapon or at least a variation of it. The distraction almost cost Kazooie as she took a deep flesh wound across her belly and quickly wrapped her left wing over the wound and waited for it to heal on its own. She launched two quick kicks at the creatures face knocking it on its back for a moment. Kazooie spun around and with a green energy flowing up her right leg she stretched it out slamming the standing creature into the barriers wall with a stretched out round house that and held it there for a moment. Her leg shrunk back to its normal length and Kazooie was gasping for breath, the pain was rather more excruciating than normal. The creature was immediately up and a second series of explosions was heard off to the side, she saw Storm Owl had just become a cloud of spreading energy spheres and Lyra looked to her in horror before vanishing herself. Looking in front of her she realized why there was a look of horror on Lyra’s face; she threw up her wings and started her Wonder Wing ability. Something was horribly wrong as the banjo riff usually accompanying this ability didn’t play. The creature had literally just thrown itself with enough force at her to hold itself in the air and continue pressuring her special protective barrier. Without the added weight or someone to protect the barrier tended to be a little less effective against incredibly focused pressure Its left claw was slowly forcing its way through her hastily erected barrier, Kazooie felt the Wonder Wing ability crack under the stress of the force and felt herself being pushed back. The claws wrapping the left hoof were reaching for her chest and those red eyes emotionlessly stared into a pair of frightened green eyes. The claw broke through and made contact, Kazooie flew back and slammed into the wall with a squawk. (Music ends.) She still had extra lives left after it had practically ripped out her heart? Well that would explain why she felt like her blood was flowing down her chest, funny she thought it would hurt worse than that. Twenty three lives left? She would make sure to not make Screwball mad after she survived this, she had more than a thousand lives before this battle even started. Groaning in pain Kazooie opened her eyes and looked down at her chest to see a surprise in store for her, instead of a large bloody mess there was something less violent there. She wiped her wing through the viscous substance and shoved a chunk of it in her beak. “Banana cream, that’s my girl alright.” Kazooie said proudly looking at the receding darkness around the hoof that had struck her with a pie at the last second. Slowly from the left hoof onward the black ink and red splotches started to recede and the body didn’t move as it did. Slowly a spiral pupil purple eyed pony with tears spilling from them gave a wan smile as she fell to the ground. Her life counter ticked down two lives leaving her with only two left. The barrier walls soon fell revealing a very interesting scene, but that moment was neither here nor there as Kazooie limped over to the body while chanting. After a moment she finally used Curaja and any of the lingering vicious injuries she had disappeared almost immediately in a swirl of green sparkles and she was walking normally now. Odd it kind of reminded her how Khronozooie was injured before they left Equestria after her first foray. “Kazooie what happened.” Banjo said as he watched a gaggle of Mizar Ants holding position around where the boss battlefield was and firing wildly at any target they could find. “Oh, I’d say Just about the roughest past few minutes of my life that I’ve ever had and I really don’t condone the child abuse that went on in there. Now I know I really have to return to Equestria soon and you better step up your game skills when we do. I’ll explain later, we really have to move it move it from the area and you better by physically fit for it, my bomb is kind of on a short fuse you know. What’s going on out here anyway?” Kazooie walked over to Screwballs body and lifted it onto her back. “Well, we didn’t see you anywhere and there was this weird boss battle barrier that Chaos said you dove through. Come to think of it, that shouldn’t even be possible.” Banjo took up a thoughtful look as chaos was taking place all around them ships were crashing to the ground and creatures were being taken down shot by shot by the surrounding friendly forces. “Anyway how fast do you think you can pull out something to get us out of here? These space pirates arrived out of nowhere and are throwing a lot of firepower at us, the S. S. Anubis and the Great Fox are under much heavier fire.” “I’ve got the transport just in mind for this many people, but we have to wait for Spoony and Derpy to get back.” With that Kazooie reached into her backpack. Derpy popped into a white room looking dizzy and she looked around when a mysterious voice spoke up. “Derpy Diana Hooves get equipped with, Storm Bubble Bomber!” Derpy’s mouth opened up and she coughed up a bubble concealing electricity and swirling winds. It strikes the ground and explodes in a spherical mass of water, wind and electricity. Derpy looked confused as she didn’t know how she had just done that or even could do something like that. Then it was repeated, she could actively feel and suddenly knew how to do whatever it was she was doing to launch that attack. This time it exploded into a tornado like the ones Storm Eagle had used only more empowered with lightning, this tornado one was directed upwards at an angle. She now instinctively knew she could direct the tornadoes direction with the secondary fire option. Wait, what was a secondary fire option? She didn’t get an answer as she disappeared from the room and Lyra was suddenly in her place. “Spoony the pony learned, Harmonic Cyclone Barrier.” Lyra glared at the ceiling and raised her right hoof towards it shaking angrily. “Oh yeah, well buck…” Lyra’s angry tirade is cut off as this chapter ends.