//------------------------------// // Epilogue: Looming Storms // Story: The Bridge: Sound of Thunder // by Tarbtano //------------------------------// ====================== ???????????????????????? ====================== Raiga was able to hear her own heartbeat between her ears before she even opened her eyes. At first everything was nothing but a black canvas with flashing lights and swirls caused by excited nerves clouding any sense of detail, but after a few blinks her vision and mind returned to her own. And she was reminded of what happened right before she blacked out, lurching up from the hospital bed as the heart rate monitor spiked. She frantically looked to and fro, the image of a battered, but still very conscious and snarling Godzilla burned onto her retinas. She tried to summon up some electricity, and could feel it around herself, but her control was so far out of sync that she had about as much success in electrifying herself as she would trying to grab smoke. Fortunate she couldn’t turn herself into a living taser considering Starlight Glimmer was quick to grab onto the frightened siren. “Hey hey! Raiga, eyes on me!” She yelped, causing Raiga to snap her head over to look at the unicorn and freeze. Her heart rate was still jolting, but after a few long seconds her breathing slowed and pulse calmed back down. “Wh-What happened?! Godzilla was-” “Gone. We’re in the hospital right now.” Starlight muttered while helping Raiga lean back into her propped up bed. She put a hoof over the kaiju-siren’s head to check for a fever as Raiga got a hold of herself. “D-Did we?” She whispered, using the term ‘we’ as the memories of the battle played back through her head. If they were in a hospital then that meant the city was probably still in one piece, a fact that gave her both a lot of hidden hope and relief. Not needing to know the rest of that question to answer it, Starlight shook her head with a sullen frown. “No, he’s still alive. He escaped with a warp spell after the others came.” Raiga tilted her head at the unicorn as the subtle beeping of the heartbeat monitor ticked on and off, having finally quelled down to a natural, slow beat. “Others?” “More kaiju came to help us out, they drove Godzilla off.” “... Which ones?” That’s when a series of heavy footsteps walked up from the direction of the children’s ward and a very tall shadow cast itself across the sheet wall. “Dame” Destroyah, as titled by the Duchess and alicorns after the defense of Canterlot, poked her head into the room wearing a purple nurse’s cap and medical garb as evidently as she wore a fang filled smile. “Hiya!” Raiga’s eyes twitched and instinct overrode any information Starlight had given her on the river trip, causing her heart rate to skyrocket as soon as she saw the familiar crimson body color and curved horn. The legless siren still managed to launch herself out of her bed fast enough that, had the snickering Destroyah not kicked it out of the way, Raiga would have crashed into the light hanger. She landed forcefully back on her bed, thrashing some as Starlight threw herself on top of Raiga to keep her from hurting herself. Destroyah pitched in, pinning down the siren with one forehoof in a casual manner that betrayed her gargantuan strength; while she dug through her own mane with the other hoof and pulled out a clipboard. “Let’s seeee...sixteen shattered ribs with three compound fractures, broken sternum in four places, ruptured left lung..ick, had to empty that one out, lacerations across 60% of your body with internal bleeding in your spleen, heart, stomach, liver, windpipe, and the upper end of your large intestine; shattered 92% of your right carpals, fourteen fractures on your radius and humerus, dislocated your left and right humerus, a shredded right tail fluke, third degree burns on your central torso to hip region; and multiple greenstick fractures on your frontal and parietal cranium. If I hadn’t helped them shove your severed lumbar vertebrae back into place you wouldn’t even be able to lunge at me just now. Only reason you’re not feelin’ any of this is the live-wire Lightning Dust hooked you up to for a recharge and all the pain killers we had to pump into yah!” Destroyah quipped in a chipper tone despite ducking her head back and to the side rapidly to avoid the flailing hooves from Raiga. Starlight Glimmer wasn’t having as easy a time. “Argp! Raiga stop it! She’s on our side!” Raiga finally stopped trying to struggle free and flopped against the bed as exhaustion returned to her, the dulled pain resurfacing across almost all of her body with a vengeance. The places that hurt most were her energy pearls, each one cracked and occasionally giving off stressed, sputtering glows that flickered on and off dimly. “Ooooooow…” She groaned in a drawn out manner, Destroyah releasing her pin and rubbing the back of her own head. “Heh, um. Well, somebody’s getting a lollipop outta thiiiiis!” She snickered awkwardly, spurring a new voice to enter the room. “Dame Destroyah! Please, have some more tact!” A refined but incredibly warm, motherly tone spoke and heralded Duchess Chrysalis’ entry. While she clearly bore some lines of stress from recent events, one of which included panic-charging two high end kaiju all by herself as soon as she found Xenilla and Destroyah, the regent of this mirrored Equestria still carried herself with a graceful stride. A stride that was all too happy to change up and cast a hug once Starlight Glimmer practically glomped her teacher and buried her muzzle into the good duchess’ shoulder. Chrysalis beamed, nuzzling her pupil affectionately while holding her close. She peeked out an eye and spied the head-tilting Raiga, her smile persisting as the changeling raised her head back up. “I don't think we've been properly introduced. After all, I believe you and my student here are the reason we have a mildly packed hospital and not a loaded morgue.” Now remembering Starlight’s words at the river, the calmed Raiga put two and two together and placed the name of the unicorn’s beloved mentor and leader of this nation to the smiling changeling before her. She relaxed and sat herself up, still jolting a bit at Dame Destroyah’s touch as the latter helped her up gently. After all, the words “gentle” and “Destroyah” being in the same sentence was something she couldn’t conceive until a minute ago. She was about to say something to Chrysalis when another presence cut off her train of thought. Instinct flared at familiarity, signalling to her there was another of her kind, a male Gojirasaurus, was close by. For a moment she panicked, visions of the nightmarish imitation of Godzilla flashing before her eyes. But thankfully, her senses filled in some more detail that quickly dissuaded that worry. The sensing was slightly ‘off’ by the time she saw the tall shadow cast itself across the curtain. Just like with this baffling reflection of Destroyah, she was unsure how to feel when a familiar yet unfamiliar voice spoke dryly from beyond the fabric wall. “Duchess, may I enter?” Duchess Chrysalis raised her brow and glanced behind herself, raising a hoof to adjust her slipping glasses after nodding. She looked over at Raiga out of the corner of her eye. “There is someone else who’d like to see you now that you’re awake.” She spoke in address to Raiga before throwing her voice out to the figure. “You can enter good Sir knight..” Sir Xenilla telekinetically lifted the curtain and peeled it back in front of him as he slowly tread in. Ever the astute study of body language, Raiga quickly compared the giant blue unicorn to both the kaiju she remembered and the monster in a pony’s body she encountered in the Thicket. His horn, coloration, and sense of power were identical to the Xenilla she remembered; but everything else was different and there was hardly a similarity to be had to the unicorn Godzilla from the palace. This Xenilla didn’t hold his head high in a smug sense of superiority like the former, nor puffed his chest out and swaggered about like the latter. He strode forth with a thickly veiled, puzzled look on his face, rolling his shoulders with each step. This wasn’t a calculating enemy or a prideful conqueror, but rather someone who had a lot on his mind as he approached her. Raiga looked at the newcomer with a familiar face as he took his spot on an empty portion of the room, turned, and faced her. “Soon-To-Be Queen Starlight has told me much. You look a lot like someone I knew and tried to sway before, but it appears you are not her and are instead someone I’ve never met before. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about that, but something about your actions as of late tells me we’ll have a lot to talk about soon enough.” ================== Godzilla trudged through the dust storm without a mind to the sandblast he was getting from the thrashing gales nor the sharp and uneven stony terrain he tread across. After all, the disorienting storms and stone-laden ground were superb at masking his footprints ever since he surfaced from the river. It had been a long walk for him across Equestria, the fact most of the bones in his body were broken when he started off did him no favors for speed. But his path had been one he planned for and ensured it was safe, marching, hiking, and swimming along the hidden route Cadenza had hexed for just such an occasion, needing to keep Xenilla and Destroyah off his trail once the teleportation was enacted. Reaching a sheltered crevice in the badlands, Junior walked up to and through the perfect facade of rock wall, stepping into the cloaked cave behind it. He calmly strode forward, descending into a maze of near total darkness amongst the pillars and walls of lime and sandstone, with the only noise being the echoed howls of the sandstorm and dripping water from above. Recalling from memory, he mentally recited the directions to navigate through Cadenza’s old hideout. -Left, left, right, step back through the crevice, right, left, middle, then take the third ramp down.- Even he had to be careful, if only to avoid any annoyances. If one could see through stone, they’d see this cave was littered with the alicorn’s crystals. If one didn’t know the correct path to tread, the illusions, warped perception, and ever-changing environment would induce a sense of misdirection and vertigo one would be hard pressed to pull free of if they ever did find their way into the remote and hidden location to begin with. That was one factor behind convincing the tyrant king that Empress Cadenza was worth teaming up with, her contingency plans were ones to rival Battra’s. Not even Celestia or Luna knew of this place, much less how to navigate it. While he would have prefered to stay in the Thicket for both elbow room and occasional entertainment with whatever deer tried to retrieve Aspen’s body again, this place was well beyond secure. He paused when his night vision-gazing eyes caught movement to his right and above him. Perched above on a half concealed stone shelf was a low crouching figure, almost entirely obscured by the outcroppings surrounding him. Even in a domain so well hidden and hard to navigate Godzilla had been properly paranoid enough to listen to suggestion and posted a sentry. After all, with Chrysalis knowing what he looked like one could never be too careful about changeling imposters. Not with how much of a precious resource was here. Godzilla curled his lip and hissed, letting glowing, radioactive mist trail out of his jaws. On command, Rodan backed down from his pounce-in-progress and bowed down. Godzilla grunted at the monstrous gryphon and nodded at him. The gesture was as close as one could get to him telling them to “keep up the good work” as Godzilla ever would give. With that settled, he tread through the tunnel Rodan was guarding, giving the cave wall a knowing pat to signal the submerged Anguirus it was definitely him. With all the misdirections, booby traps, dampening spells, and anti-scrying hexes Cadenza had installed over the years; it never hurt to have two other kaiju on guard duty. This was their fortress and anyone who tried to breach it was paying far more than what a life could give. ================== Xenilla continued on, approaching Raiga’s hospital bed with a steady pace. “Had you been the one I thought you were at first, I’d be hesitant to do this. But, you are not.” ================== Godzilla could see clearly now that the enchanted darkness and fog had lifted, stepping into a deceptively large chasm carved into the rocky cave. A carved path and illuminating crystals guided him past Battra Lea and Empress Cadenza, the two already setting up the surviving material from the Thicket that hadn’t gone up in smoke to get the new laboratory up and running. The monstrous unicorn followed the path to the back of the sanctum. There was something he needed to check on. ================== “I’ve brought my mistake to this world Raiga. The good Duchess may think otherwise but I don’t think of myself as a very good soul... but, this mistake has taken much from me and I intend to correct it before it can take from others. But, two against four can be a handful for myself and Destroyah-” =================== Passing the length of the cavern into the back of the cave, Godzilla strode up to a sickly green and purple glow. It illuminated his features when he turned the corner and approached the crystalline coffin. Even now he could feel the power radiating off it, closing his eyes to embrace it as he walked towards the jeweled tomb. The dings, bruises, and scabs that littered his form evaporated away among the twinges of pain spurred by regeneration. He stopped and meditated before the pulsing aerenth and its glimmering contents. =================== “This wasn’t your fight, but it seems like nobody’s stopping you from joining in. So you have two choices to pick from. You can focus on finding your way back to your home and endure your stay at this hospital, or-” Xenilla noted, raising a hoof and waving it across the room. His horn and shoulder patches glimmered, bringing forth a dual yellow and blue brilliance from a saddlebag he bore across his back. Xenilla levitated the healing and energy crystals to hover directly between his own and Raiga’s faces, the slowly rotating crystal shards flickering between their eyes as the two kaiju looked to each other. =================== Deep inside the aerenth coffin, the encased, near comatose form of King Sombra twitched and grimaced as his power was drained away from him. The darkness and wrathful power that had settled over the benevolent monarch since he ripped it away from the alicorn sisters was near infinite and replenished across his body and heart almost as fast as his captor could drain it away. His coma did nothing to dull the pain of either action. =================== The crystal levitated close enough to Raiga that the kaiju-turned-siren could practically taste the energy coming off it. Just the radiance emanating from the dual constructs was enough to cause some of her bruises to lighten. Xenilla finished his proposal. “-or you can help me finish what you started here.” Raiga looked to the healing and energy crystals for a time before glancing down at her cracked and aching red conductor pearls. =================== The Tyrant King of the Monster’s eyes snapped open with a malefic grin, ruby red radiation trailing from his maw and dark magic smoke slithering out of his eyeballs. Back in the shadows, Battra Lea watched on with her own smirk. =================== In a small burst of yellow and blue radiance, the cracks and cuts in Raiga's pearls began to mend themselves back together. ===================