"Twilight, how are you feeling?" Zach asked. The two alicorns were soaring through the air, on there way back to Ponyville. After the battle with X-Valor, Luna had returned to the castle while Zach and Twilight took a well deserved rest. It had turned night while to two were resting, either way, they decided to head back to Ponyville anyways.
"Much better, you know, it felt good to get all the anger off my chest." She said with a slight smile. Zach simply smiled back as well, if it wasn't for her rage, the battle may have taken much longer than it should have, with much more damage. "Zach?" She asked. "I know this is out of the blue, but, what are you going to do once all this is over?" Zach looked thoughtful for a moment before responding.
"I'm not sure. My original plan was to try and get back to my planet, but now, I don't know."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that, I was brought here for a reason, like I said before. And I think I know why, to protect you guys, and fight off the umbralings." He said. He was sure that's why he was brought here. "So... I'm probably just going to stay here, in Equestria."
"Are... you sure?" Twilight asked with some concern.
"I'm sure, besides, if I return like how I am now, well... let's just say humans won't take it very well." He said. He did not want to be some sort of science project. Zach looked forward, seeing that they were nearing Ponyville. However, something was very wrong. Ponies were running and screaming in terror from all too familiar creatures.
"It's another umbraling attack!" Zach yelled as he dove down into the town center. Twilight's eyes widened as she too dove down. Below, an umbraling had a pony by the hair, ready to bite down on the back of the neck, that is, until Zach landed on top of it, crushing many of its bones in the process. Now free, the mare ran off, happy to be alive. The umbraling under Zach let off a low growl, trying to push him off. "Oh, shut up." Zach said, curb stomping the umbralings head, killing it. Twilight soon landed by his side, shooting at an umbraling in front of the two.
Twilight looked at Zach worriedly.
"Why are they attacking so late at night?" She asked, while blasting another umbraling. Just as Zach was about to answer, someone else beat him to it.
"They're attacking because I had them do it." A dark voice said. Turning to the source, they both saw not standing far away from them a taller, more slim umbraling, and behind it many more umbralings.
"Did... that one just talk?" Zach asked, somewhat shocked.
"I-I think it did." Twilight said, shocked too.
"Of course I can talk! I'm the empress of the fucking umbralings!" The empress said, a bit irritated. Both Zach and Twilight's eyes widened.
"The empress?!" They both questioned at the same time.
"Yes!" She said. "I'm here to finally put an end to you shits! You have foiled us for too long now!"
"Uh, it's only been like... three days." Zach stated, causing the empress' eye to twitch.
"I don't care, I'm still going to kill you! When I'm done with you, I'll turn your ribcage into a whine rack and your spine into a spine rack!" She proclaimed.
"I swear, I've heard that before somewhere." Zach said, mostly to himself. The umbraling empress bent over, starting to grow in size, first horns sprouted from her head. Then her legs started splitting apart, forming into tentacles, her claws grow out as well. When her transformation was done, she was now a true monster, a little over double in height of the two alicorns. "Well, that's intimidating." Zach commented again.
The empress smirked evilly, she brought a claw up and snapped her fingers. Two of the umbralings behind her looked at eachother before slowly moving to her sides. Then, she brought up two of her tentacles, then drove them through the umbraling's eyes. Both of them seemed like they wanted to scream out in pain, but couldn't. She then took her tentacles out of the umbralings eyes, they were jerked forward, but then froze for a moment.
At first, nothing happened, but suddenly, the two umbralings exploded, making Twilight and Zach cover their eyes from the fluids. Once that was over, they looked back at the two, and what they saw made their jaws drop. The umbralings top halves were gone, now nothing more than a pair of legs with five flailing tentacles at the top of them.
"Okay, that's disturbing on multiple levels." Zach once again commented.
(Eeveesprit - [MLP:FIM] BOSS BATTLE: vs chrysalis! (1.0))
"Kill them!" The empress yelled as she pointed towards the two, her voice now distorted and demonic. The umbralings obliged, even the tentacle umbralings, waddling over to the two. Zach put up a shield, blocking the incoming spikes while Twilight fired lasers from the sides of the shield, wanting to see something, Zach got Twilight's attention.
"Hey, Twilight, try shooting through the shield." He said, almost casually.
"Why?" She questioned, not taking her focus off the umbralings.
"Just try, I want to see something." Twilight shrugged her shoulders, moving behind the shield and firming another bolt of magic, watching as it went strait throug, hitting another umbraling. "Okay, so this is a one way shield, good to know. So now you can attack with more safety." He said, looking back though, the two tentacle umbralings had made their way to the shield and started pounding on it. "Get ready to fly Twilight." Zach said, Twilight simply nodded. After a few more hits on the shield, Zach suddenly called out. "Now!" He said while ending the shield. Both him and Twilight flew out of the way as spikes flew underneath them.
While Twilight fight the regular umbralings from the air, Zach went directly for the empress. She saw this and, without hesitation, stabbed two other umbralings in the eye, turning them into tentacle umbralings. The two umbralings tried to whip Zach out of the sky, their tentacles extending to reach him. Zach dodged one tentacle, and when a second when tried to hit him, he grabbed it in his magic, pulling up the umbraling. He turned in the air, swinging the umbraling around, he then got closer to the empress, wacking her with the umbraling he had in his grasp.
The empress had a murderous look as she grabbed the umbraling, then proceeding to cut it in half, killing it.
"Well then... she doesn't give two shits about her umbralings." Zach said, only to yelp in surprise after dodging a tentacle from the empress. However, the same appendage moved and wrapped around Zach, bringing him down and slamming him into the ground. The empress picked him up again, slamming him into a nearby building, as she was about to pick him up again, a midnight blue sword sliced her tentacle off, causing her to scream out in agony. Zach quickly threw off the quickly melting tentacle, and looked up to see who his savior was. Again, it was somepony he was not expecting to see.
"Luna?" Zach asked, seeing the blue alicorn flying above the battle. She dove to the ground, landing next to Zach.
"Hello once again Zach." She greeted him.
"So.. you're here to join the battle I take it?"
"Of course, I wouldn't just save you then fly off."
"Okay, but I must question, why haven't you come to help with the other battles?"
"That's simple, because I knew you could handle them." She responded, Zach just looked at her for a moment before shaking his head and turning his gaze back to the empress.
"Okay, go help Twilight, this bitch is mine." He said, without giving Luna a chance to respond, he flew away towards the empress. Luna watched him go off before flying over to Twilight. Zach fired a volley of laser at the empress, who responded by raising her tentacles to block to incoming attacks. Though it did protect her, Zach felt a charge building up. He landed back on the ground, ready to fire more lasers at the empress, but instead, she sent out some umbralings to deal with him. Zach was faced with two regular umbralings, a shooter and an armored umbraling.
The shooter made the first move, shooting spikes from its claws at him. Zach quickly put up a shield, not only blocking the spikes, but also blocking the charge from the armored umbraling. As soon as the shooter ran out of spikes, Zach called off his shield and encased his hoof. The armored umbraling charged at him again, but Zach jumped, clotheslining the umbraling. The other two umbralings then moved in, the front most trying to cut him with its claws. However Zach punched it in the face, disorienting it, he then turned around and gave it a solid buck. The umbraling stumbled back, running into its ally, the alicorn then moved in, punching both with an encased hoof, shattering their skulls.
This resulted in Zach gaining a charge, he decided to leave the other two alone and use the charge on the empress. However, the empress herself appeared in front of Zach, time seemed to slow down as he tried to register what had happened. The empress moved moved her claw towards Zach, nailing him in the horn. He didn't have time to worry about the pain in his horn as the empress then used her tentacles to smack the white alicorn away. Zach was thrown back by the sheer force of the hit, flying back-first into Twilight house. Zach quickly got his bearings together, getting back to his hooves, resulting in some pained grunts from him.
"Damn it... she knows about my charge." He said under his breath. Zach looked back up just in time to see three tentacles heading his way, he acted quickly, dodging out of the way as the appendages made contact with the tree behind him. Meanwhile Twilight and Luna were fairing a bit better than he was at the moment. Taking care if the umbralings was not that hard, Twilight dealt with the shooters and regular umbraling while Luna took care of the armored and tentacle umbralings. The shooters and tentacles managed to get some hits in everyone and then, as they were the only ones that could hit the two princess's.
"How are you doing Princess?" Twilight asked Luna as she blasted another shooter.
"Quite well, actually." She replied while slicing off the tentacles of an umbraling. "And Twilight you so t have to refer to me as princess anymore, we're on the same level now."
"Princess, you can raise the moon, I've yet to find my role as a princess, I'm not on the same level as you." Twilight responds as she zaps an umbraling below. Luna casually chuckled, as if the situation at hand didn't even faze her.
"You'll soon find you purpose, Princess Twilight." Luna said with a smile, causing Twilight to blush a little.
"I wonder how Zach is doing." Twilight though aloud.
"PIECE OF PISS!" The two alicorns heard Zach angrily cry out.
"I'm sure that answered your question." Luna said. Back with Zach, he had just gained another charge, but hadn't used it, instead, he threw up a shield to block a tentacle from the empress, who was trying to cancel out his charge.
"Quit fucking around and piss off!" Zach said in his Sniper impression. Out of his vision though, the empress had another tentacle headed strait for Zach. As soon as Zach realized this, it was already too late. The tentacle struck his horn, canceling out the charge again. Zach cursed in anger, calling back the shield, out of pure hatred, he shot out a volley of lasers at the empress. He shot out so many, even he couldn't count them, the empress raised her tentacles to block the incoming barrage of lasers. He soon stopped however, doing that tired him out very quickly, it did at least give him charge in doing so.
As the empress removed her tentacles from protecting her, she saw that Zach had a charge and, without hesitation, tried to take it away from him. Zach eyes widened as he quickly moved out of the way of the incoming tentacles. Eventually, Zach managed to get far enough from the empress, he landed on the ground attempting to catch his breath. The empress stared at him for a moment before closing its eye, when it reopened its eye, it was glow purple.
"Huh?" Zach saw the eye, wondering what it meant. Soon after, the empress let out a scream, as a purple beam fired from her eye. Zach screamed out in surprise, quickly moving out of the way of the beam. Some unfortunate umbralings were fried by the beam, now nothing more than charred corpses. "Holy eye beam!" Zach said, he looked back at the empress, seeing that she was preamp earring another beam. Wasting no time, he jumped into the air, narrowly dodging the next beam.
However, Zach had made a mistake by flying too close to the empress, as she ended the beam, she sent another tentacle after him. Zach wanted to move out of the way, but he was simply too tired to do so. Just as it was about to strike his horn, something flew in between them.
"Luna!" Zach cried out. The lunar alicorn had flown in front of the tentacle to prevent the empress from taking Zach's charge away. She landed on the ground painfully, a deep cut along her torso signifying where she had been struck. The empress stared at Luna, surprised by her sudden appearance. Zach on the other hand, glared back at the empress, landing on the ground with new found adrenaline. "That's. It!" Zach yelled out, gaining the umbraling's attention, he activated his charge. "I've had enough!" He proclaimed as he launched into the air.
The empress looked up, watching as the alicorn flew higher into the air. She started panicking, thinking quickly however, she prepared another beam. Just as she finished preparing it, Zach was already headed strait for her, a look of anger and determination on his face. She quickly fired the beam, scoring a direct hit. Zach yelled out in pain, but, even though he could feel his flesh burning off his body, he didn't stop his charge, he kept pushing through. As he neared the ground, he let out a deep war cry and just as the empress' beam ended, Zach slammed into the ground.
However, this charge was much more powerful than the other, ponies felt the ground shake beneath them, and the explosion itself was far larger. Suddenly, all at once, the umbralings in the area all fell to the ground, seemingly dead. Seeing this, Twilight gently lowered herself to the ground, and rushed over to the smoke where the explosion had taken place. However, what she saw shocked her. In the smoke was a biped figure, the empress, as she walked forwards towards Twilight. Before she could question anything, the empress fell as well, falling out of the smoke. The entire font of her body was missing, reveling the skeleton and some organs and muscles, all of which had a layer of red magic on them. Twilight took one last glance at the corpse before rushing into the smoke herself.
"Zach? Zach?!" She called out, desperately looking for him. However, the smoke started to clear, allowing Twilight to be able to see. But what she saw, she didn't like. There was no trace of Zach, not even a body, the only indication that showed he was once here was the small crater in the ground. The realization struck her hard, like a knife through the heart. "No..." She silently said, tears starting to form. "No..." She said once more, tears now falling from her eyes. She fell to the ground, her front hooves over her eyes as she silently cried into her hooves. Zach was gone.
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Luna, Celestia, and Twilight sat in the throne room. Luna had a huge bandage wrapped around her torso, the cut was to big to just heal with magic. Twilight face was stained with tears and Celestia simply looked down, thinking deeply of what Twilight had told her about the outcome of Zach.
"I... can only come to one conclusion." She said, gaining the two other alicorns attention. "With the beam and the charge, not to mention the damage and exhaustion he suffered from, I can only guess that his body... simply... was vaporized by his own magic."
"What... what do you mean?" Twilight asked in between sobs.
"The beam had started to eat away at his body, combine that with his exhaustion and the charge. He was so focused on... killing the empress, that his body didn't realize what it was being put through until it was too late. When Zach finished the charge, all the pressure from everything that had transpired, his magic... physically consumed him." She stated, a little hesitant on the last part.
"So... Zach sacrificed himself." Luna stated. The whole situation struck her hard as well, but she was doing everything in her power not to let it affect her as much as it did Twilight.
"In... conclusion, yes." Celestia said, turning away to not allow the two to see the tears forming in her eyes.
"Zach..." Twilight silently said to herself, more tears starting to fall.
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Zach awoke with a jolt, taking in a deep breath of air, as if it had been the first time he had breathed in a long time. As soon as he calmed down, he noticed that he was no longer outside, he was inside, and a faint beeping noise could be heard. He looked around, seeing that he appeared to be in another hospital room. He went to rub his face, bringing his arms up, that's when he saw it. His arms, no longer white and pony like, they were human, human arms and hands. He sat up a bit, looking himself over. He was a human again, he was back... on earth.