Pony of Braves: GaoGaiGar
By PonyRobo
Chapter Four: The Enemy Reborn v2
The calm stillness of the peaceful Canterlot evening was abruptly shattered when Genesic GaoGaiGar was hurled out of the side of Canterlot Mountain and down to the plains below, much of its body shattering at impact. As if that weren’t enough, the drop was then followed by a beam whose shine overpowered even the sun's bright rays shooting out through the hole in the mountain and lancing straight into Galeon’s mouth, exploding and crippling the unpiloted mech before it had a chance to fight.
Only after this crucial task was completed did the New Machine Species, Zonuda, exit through the hole as well and survey its new domain. While it had partially adapted to the shape of its new host, now sporting four legs, a differently-shaped pair of wings and a wicked-looking horn on its head, its lined golden coloration was still all too familiar to the heroes of GGG. The Zonuda had managed to regain its great size by converting Celestia’s magical energy into mass, but it wanted, nay, it needed more material to mechanize so that it could continue its mission where it had been interrupted one year ago.
However, its musings were interrupted when a dark blue alicorn slammed into its side at an appreciable fraction of the speed of sound, sending it spiraling into the distance before mustering all of the power the Royal Canterlot Voice possessed. “ATTENTION CITIZENS OF EQUESTRIA! THIS IS YOUR PRINCESS LUNA, BEARING DIRE NEWS! FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES! GET AS FAR AWAY FROM HERE AS YOU CA-!” Luna was rudely cut off when the Zonuda retaliated by enclosing her in a field of golden magic. At first nothing happened, but Luna’s surprise soon gave way to screams of pain as purple tendrils began to crawl up her legs, turning flesh and bone into metal as they went. Despite Luna’s best efforts, she was unable to extricate herself from the metal, which only accelerated its growth when exposed to her magic. With her magic slowly being drained and her wings becoming too heavy to support her, the moon princess realized that her struggle was futile and surrendered to the conversion.
“So this is how it ends. We must admit to being quite surprised at this turn of events, but even alicorns must pass on someday,” Luna thought to herself as her sense of self faded. “We can only hope that these visitors can succeed where we have failed…” However, just before she lost consciousness, she felt the tendrils partially recede as a harsh blast of ice, accompanied by a cry of “Chest Thriller!” encased a spherical barrier around the Zonuda. As she too slammed into the plains below, her last thought was that hope was not lost after all…
“And today had been going so well,” EnRyu grumbled. “We stopped the Soul Masters, saved the universe and made some new friends on top of that! Now we’re being slapped around by the Zonuda, which we know for a fact should be dead, and both Mamoru and the captain are out cold!” Indeed, despite HyoRyu’s limited success in saving Princess Luna, the battle had not been going well for the GGG Mobile Unit. The simple truth was that they were too damaged by their battle with the Soul Masters to fight at full capacity, which resulted in a fight that looked eerily similar to last year’s curb-stomping. In fact, the only reason any of the mecha were still standing was that they had desperately given ground to avoid the Zonuda’s touch, not at all eager to be deactivated as quickly as they had been last time. However, this led to them being virtually unable to deal any significant damage, as the Zonuda’s barrier easily shrugged off all of the attacks they could use in their damaged states.
HyoRyu and EnRyu were restricted to the Freezing Gun and Melting Gun, respectively, as the Chest Thriller and Warmer’s systems had been almost completely annihilated by the Supernova and ChoRyuJin’s tonfas had been destroyed in P-Vater’s counterattack. Big Volfogg was only able to use the 4,000 Magnum, as the Murasame Sword would have forced him to close with the Zonuda, which was suicide, and his Mirror Coating was too depleted for him to use the Whirling Death Strike. To make matters worse, both of the boomerangs necessary for the Silver Moon and Silver Cross had been broken by Polturn. Quite frankly, the fact that the GunMachines were even in something approximating working order was a minor miracle. FuRyu and RaiRyu were completely useless, as their wind and lightning control mechanisms had been broken by P’tulone, thus making the Two-Headed Dragon an impossibility. KouRyu and AnRyu were similarly useless, as they were barely able to move under their own power after the use of the Bullet X Lite and their attachments had been sliced off by Puranus, rendering the Dance of Darkness and Light unusable. Mic Sounders the 13th found himself in the same boat, as his disc player was destroyed by Percurio and there were no nearby suspension bridges that could substitute. Even he, however, was infinitely more useful than the J-Ark, as the strain of getting GaoGaiGar to Pisa Sol so soon after using the J-Phoenix had been too much for it to handle, resulting in its current unresponsive state. All in all, the forces of the Gutsy Galaxy Guard were in very poor shape at the moment, and victory looked to be impossible.
However, despite the Zonuda’s attempts to rectify the mistakes made in its last defeat, it had again forgotten one crucial factor: Mamoru.
“What… where am I? What happened, and are those… ponies? I hear something,” At this, his hair began to glow that distinctive green, which combined with the lingering echoes of the earlier cry immediately filled his heart with dread. “No, it can’t be! The Zonuda died, I saw it happen! Guy purified it, I know it! And yet, something tells me it isn’t that simple.” With that, he spared a glance at the ponies, two of whom trotted towards him when they noticed he had awoken. “That just raises further questions, but for now GGG needs my help, and I can’t let anything stop me!” Mamoru cried as he unfurled his wings and flew out through the gaping hole in the unfamiliar wall. What he saw nearly made him pass out again – it was indeed the Zonuda, but it looked off, as if it had Zonderized a unicorn rather than a human. The Mobile Unit was attempting to fight it, but they weren’t having much success in their weakened state. No, this battle would come down to him and him alone.
“Consarn it! Just when we could get some answers, that little feller had to go and fly off!”
“Now, now Applejack, do try to remember that we have higher priorities at the moment. I’m sure we’ll be able to talk to him later, after that ghastly thing has been dealt with and Celestia has been saved. In the meantime, we should probably search for the Elements, no?”
“Rarity’s right, Applejack. We need to free Celestia from this… Zonuda… and to do that I’m sure we’ll need the Elements! Fortunately, I’ve already teleported and gotten them, so now we just need to put them on and get… a… clear shot… Oh no! With everything that’s going on out there, it’s going to be impossible to hit that thing! What do we do?!”
“Well, it isn’t that hard, Twilight. The Elements only purify things, right? Even if we miss, there won’t be any consequences, right? I say we fire away!”
“But that won’t work, Dash! We won’t have enough energy for more than one shot, maybe two if we really push it! If we waste those, we won’t be able to use the Elements again for days! We have to be right on target!”
“Well, there’s gotta be some chance we can hit, right? And we’re the heroes here, right?”
“Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything? Are you going somewhere with this?”
“Hay yes I am! If there’s one thing I know about heroes, it’s that they always come through in the clutch! What were the odds that we could have beaten Nightmare Moon? Or that dragon that Fluttershy stared down? Or Discord? And what about Shining Armor and Cadence? We can’t just let them one-up us like that! We’ve beaten the odds before, and I know we can do it again! With courage, a 1% chance becomes 100%! There’s nothing we can’t do if we put our minds to it!”
“Well, I suppose we have no choice. Let’s do it!” Twilight’s eyes began to glow as the six mares were raised into the air as an incredibly bright rainbow shot out of Twilight’s tiara and flew… extremely far to the right of the target. While Twilight knew from an intellectual standpoint that the visitors couldn’t be harmed by the Elements, her subconscious had remained leery – after all, both Nightmare Moon and Discord were functionally immortal and native to Equestria, so there was no way to predict what might happen if any of them were struck by the power of harmony. As a result, Twilight had directed the beam in such a way to ensure that none of the Braves were hit – which, given the chaotic dance they were currently engaging in, meant the beam also came nowhere near the Zonuda. Unfortunately for the mares, they had put everything they had into that one shot, leaving all of them as exhausted as they had been the first time they used the Elements, weakly laying on the floor and desperately trying to summon the necessary power for another shot. Despite their best efforts, it was a lost cause, and they could do nothing but watch as the rainbow flew out towards Appleloosa. Then, to their great surprise, it turned. Despite no known force being able to stop or control the Elements of Harmony in this state, the beam was turning before their very eyes, swinging around for another shot. “But… how?” was Twilight’s sole objection before she surrendered to the impossibility of the day and sat back to watch the show.
“What was that?” Mamoru thought as he saw a bright rainbow-colored beam shoot out of the mountain and past the impromptu battlefield. It was strange, but he could almost feel the energy radiating from it as if it were that of a G-Stone. In any case, it was awfully familiar… “Well, seeing as how they had us all in a hospital of sorts, I would wager that the… um, ponies… back there are friendly, and that the rainbow was some kind of weapon. Their aim could use some work, but it felt almost like a G-Stone’s energy, which I can control… I’ve got it! Maybe I CAN control it and set it on course! It’s a long shot, but I have to try!” With that, Mamoru began to focus. He concentrated harder than he ever had in his entire life, expending more energy than he had, even during the duel with Pei La Cain.
The colors of the rainbow blast began to fuse together, producing a spherical beam of blindingly bright white light. The spherical beam then homed in on the Zonuda like a missile, unerringly flying between all of the other Braves and effortlessly dodging the Zonuda’s attempted counterattacks.
For a brief instant, the sun itself was outshone as the greatest and most pure force of Harmony ever to be wielded raced towards the Zonuda, tearing through its barrier like it wasn’t even there and encircling it, cutting it off from the Braves and preventing it from moving.
Unfortunately for all involved, the Zonuda saw its destruction inbound and knew that while fighting back was impossible in its weakened state, its new host had a variety of other options available, including long-distance teleportation. With a single thought, the golden monstrosity teleported out from the ball of energy, a faint popping noise being the only evidence of its disappearance before the ball shrank down to nothing, revealing only empty air. The Zonuda was gone, and with it all hope of avoiding a war for the very survival of Equestria.
To be continued…
A/N: Behold! Now with 100% less stupidity!