The Bridge: A Godzilla-MLP Crossover

by Tarbtano

Chapter 31: Sins

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Canterlot Castle, Solar Tower
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Xenilla and Mothra Lea stood across from each other, at work doing what neither of them ever expected to be doing. A coventure.

The rune of the mothra line was drawn across the floor with some magiwood ash loaned from Twilight Sparkle’s supply, its end points and circumference lined with energized quartz crystals that bore a containment field above the circle. Having set the last crystal and minding the ash, Xenilla sat down on one end of the mothra symbol’s central cross with Lea taking her seat at the other end about a meter away from him. Xenilla looked at the symbol surrounding him with a wary eye as it began to glow dimly with a golden light. Lea had a similar expression cast to the quartz crystals as short bursts of energy arched across them from crystal to crystal to form a small dome above them.

“And these, crystals, won’t disrupt my magic?”

“Human knowledge of magic is hilariously lacking, and I got much of my knowledge from them so what they know not, I know not. But, given my crystals worked fine on your island, the answer is no.”

“Then why bother with them?”

“Energy is energy, by science or sorcery. But, if something goes wrong they’ll contain it.”

Xenilla grunted dryly, catching an unamused, unconvinced look from Lea.

“Still convinced I’d try to kill you?”

She quipped, crossing her forelimbs before herself. Xenilla just shrugged.

“No, I know you’re smarter than that. Adding any large amount of energy to me can throw my power off balance, and you know very well how dangerous it can be for any of my family when we lose control. I know you won’t try anything due to the populace being so close to us, lest my meltdown eradicate all.”

Lea’s eyes narrowed at Xenilla, an expression he gave in turn especially after seeing her horn and antennae glow in unison with the increasing brilliance of the rune they were sitting on.

“And are you sure this graffiti of your’s won’t disrupt me?”

“Runes, not graffiti.”

Lea muttered with a bit of snippyness in her tone. Even when working together, something she was still dumbstruck by the idea of, Xenilla was managing to push her buttons.

“And if you’re experiencing visions of any kind I’ll need a route to get into your conscious and subconscious. This is the best one and I’ve done this before, perfectly safe.”

The glow across both the runes and the arcs of energy going across the crystals reached a peak, brilliant radiance staining both transformed kaiju’s forms as well as every wall around them. Xenilla took in a breath, knowing it was time, and closed his eyes. On one hand, he was afraid Lea might find more than his visions while poking around in his mind; an act he still didn’t particularly care for but stuck with it for sake of getting this ordeal over with. On the other hand, aside from solving this visions problem, some part of him almost wanted her to find out some of the truth he’d already spoken to Blade Dancer. After years of keeping it between himself and a cohort whom Xenilla suspected just pretended she didn’t know, maybe Blades was right? Maybe it was time to let the secret out?

“Anything I need to do?”

He whispered to Lea, already feeling the magic around him increase ever still in magnitude. Mothra Lea leaned forward as the Shobijin, Moll and Lora began to chant an ever familiar song in a quiet melody.

“Stand still-”

The rune’s glow pulsed in a like-manner to the tips of Lea’s antennae and horn. A small radiance shimmered across Xenilla’s form, like he’d been covered in incredibly fine glitter.

“-I’m taking an initial scry so I know how the magic will interact with your form. It’s a delicate process and I need to know the specifics for this sort of thing. Even if your form is similar to Godzilla’s and is now a pony, it’s needed for your-”

“-mutation?”

Xenilla grumbled lowly. Lea paused briefly in her speech, Xenilla not needing to open his eyes to know she was shaking her head at him.

“-I was going to say constitution, since everyone is different. But, very well. Mutation it is. Just hold still.”

Xenilla breathed out slowly, feeling the magic work up from the floor and move its way over his body; first on the points of contact his hooves had with the ground and upwards from his limbs. It was a bizarre sensation, both foreign and comforting at the same time as it seeped through his skin and into his internals in a wave of energy. Every vein, every bone, every muscle and tendon could be felt when the magic crossed it; like a bath that seeped across one’s entirety. It had just worked its way up to his crest when word from Lea broke him out of the magical lull the spell had brought him to.

“Hmmmm…”

Xenilla cracked an eye open, seeing a sight that probably would have made him jump up a bit had his nerves not been so steadied. Mothra Lea was studying him with an eerie green and golden glow having enveloped her eyes and antennae like a pair of lenses.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, just unexpected.”

Lea muttered, cracking a perplexed expression.

“You have magic.”

A few long seconds passed before Xenilla retorted in an incredulous manner.

“.... How? My powers are biologically based!”

“No it’s not the cause of your powers like it is mine, but you definitely have the residual energies to indicate it. Like a stain imprinted onto you.”

“Can you tell its origin?”

Lea narrowed her eyes, focusing the unnatural vision she bore. The world around her was less imagery as much as it was a tapestry of auras and auroras, some molded into the shapes to which she recognized. Xenilla had mana like every other living thing, in this case his was a hue of neon red that approximated his form’s shape. But among the red, in thin lines stretching through his veins and nerves, was a very distinct mix of green and gold. Colors familiar to her because they were identical to her own.

“It’s…. It’s my family’s….. “

She spoke in a half whisper. A few seconds worth of thought passed before she gave Xenilla a miffed look.

“Have you been sneaking onto my island?!”

Xenilla raised his hoof up both defensively and offhandedly at the snappy remark, shaking his head with a mild sneer.

“Of course not! Why would I after the first time? Could the stain have come from our skirmishes?”

Lea puzzled, curling in her lips and biting her tongue, a new sensation she was still getting used to, as she focused her vision further. The interior of Xenilla’s signature energies became more obvious, and so too did the green-gold patterns across the red. This wasn’t merely a residue or stain, this magic was literally impressed upon every cell and part of his being. This couldn’t be an additive. She’d had Junior stay and rest on her island and be sung to by the twin faeries for hours, much to Lora’s delight, and he didn’t have nearly this much of her family magic left on him. For this degree of magic, you usually have to be born with it.

“No, no this is something that’s been there far longer than our first meeting. It’s… imprinted on every bit of you there is. This is something you’ve had for years, decades even.”

Xenilla lowered his hoof and raised an eyebrow, letting his mind drift back to all the times he’d been in contact with a mothra. For all but one of those instances, the mothra in question was Lea. But there was that one other time…

“Your mother, she was the one to carry my father’s blood into space on her voyage to stop that asteroid in 1992. Is it possible that, maybe some of her magic transplanted onto me during my birth? And this magic may be causing these visions?”

Lea chewed her lip before sighing, thinking the scenario over as she revisited the memories of her mother. Her parent never could have thought or imagined what she accidentally allowed to be created.

“Yes, it is possible… Especially considering-….”

“Considering?”

Xenilla muttered with a hint of concern, given the odd expression on Lea’s face.

“It’s this particular type of magic. It’s what gives me my family’s memories. Each generation passes it to the next.”

“You have genetic memories? Color me surprised.”

“From every Mothra there ever was onto the next. It ensures the line gets stronger. Anything my foremothers could do or learn, I have. The magic is carried along at the same time as the blood and imprints itself from parent to offspring… It appears, you have some of these memories too. Your connection to them isn’t strong enough for active recall like me, but it’s ingrained enough to lurk in your subconscious.”

The full ramifications of what Xenilla had just been told took a moment to sink in. And when it did, it filled him with a horrific dream that momentarily showed itself across his face and earned a curious, almost concerned look from Lea before Xenilla stifled his shocked expression His mind felt like it was growing cold, a creeping chill trickling out from the depths and across his entirety. One of his greatest fears, one he’d tried to keep smothered since the day he was born, was returning. Doubt. Doubt in the visions he’d been met with the moment he had a conscious thought. All those sights, feelings, smells, and experiences of foreboding doom that drove him to do what he did, drove him to try and kill his ‘father’; all of them he’d managed to live with for two decades by telling himself that future had been averted. All of it just might have been worthless because doubt told him he might have been wrong.

Those visions of a future may have been of some past tied to Mothra’s family, the time being of passed days only making more sense when Xenilla recalled that the reoccurring dreams he had were from the perspective of his father. If the mothra lineage had genetic memories and some of their magic rubbed off on him, maybe it gave him some of Godzilla Senior’s memories as well?

The affirmation of that particular train of logic being sound did little to calm Xenilla’s lost wit. Quite the contrary, for now he was practically choking on his own uncertainty and worry. The idea the second most important decision in his life, between family and a world, might have been completely meaningless because he misinterpreted something. Xenilla whispered with a slight quiver in his lip.

“... Look at them.”

“... Are you sure? That would require me to phase into your mind.”

“Please… I need to know.”

He already knew the answer but like a desperate criminal awaiting a surefire sentence, he was both dreading the reveals coming and unable to bear a dreaded patience in it’s arrival. Mothra Lea acted as she normally would upon seeing someone like this, only surprised in hindsight as to who it was, by reaching out with her hoof and putting it on Xenilla’s shoulder reassuringly. Following the steps verbatim, she reenacted the motions her mother and father once partook in during a fateful battle over twenty years ago by gently placing her glowing antennae and horn to Xenilla’s as golden dust flew from her and surrounded him.

“Show me everything.”

Time and space bent and twisted around once Lea “looked in”. The mind wasn’t just the material and immaterial so it was less like just reaching in to read something and more like entering another plane entirely; one made of soulbound conscious and unconscious, physical networks of memories archived in the brain, emotions, and self perception. That all accounted for, Lea only needed a fleeting glance at Xenilla’s mind to immediately tell that something wasn’t adding up to what she expected to find.

Evil was a very real thing, she’d seen it, and any sentient being with the power and capability for reason can commit evil deeds and thoughts. There were two types of mentalities in the realms she’d known of that she’d seen labeled as evil with justification from the perspectives present, she having looked into the minds of both. The first was due to drastic values dissonance, rare to such a degree, but possible nonetheless. The second, and sadly far more common, was genuine malice. Hatred, greed, uncontrolled wrath, gluttony, lust, selfishness, megalomania, and sociopathy. Looking at the mentalscape around her however, Lea was honestly shocked she didn’t see any of that. Xenilla’s mind was uneasy and likely unhealthy in some regards, but all the signs she expected weren’t there. And this was no jest. A lie strong enough even the mind believes it is hard enough to do, but a complete overhaul like this was impossible even for a high class psychic. This was truth.

Minds tend to be more symbolic than overt with their details at first, you need to understand the general scheme before you can find what you’re looking for in specific.

Rodan’s was almost always a bright blue sky that lay above a long sea of clouds, with a view of the atmos above that refused to stay blemished for long. Problems, like the occasional storm cloud, still lingered about ever so often on the bottom, but they never reached very high and went away as soon as they were dealt with. He was naive and inexperienced in some ways and had his issues, but he was wholly content with life; never giving any foothold or patch of sky for cynicism or dread to fester.

Anguirus’ mental realm was stoic and study, often taking a state one could compare to a rocky canyon. Problems came and went like a surging flood down the canyon rivers. They’d take some toll and there was a sense of lacking in some ways, as indicated in how the rivers might erode away some of the land. But for every bit affected, it was less a loss and more of a change; and even then the grounds surrounding them largely remained constant. Anguirus was a hardy soul, having issues, doubts, or sadness; but stayed the course and remained a constant despite them.

Godzilla Junior’s mind was a bit more worrisome. If Rodan was an unblemished sky and Anguirus a stalwart land, Godzilla was a variable sea. Sometimes calm, sometimes churning uneasily, sometimes roaring among a storm with only a strong sense of duty and morality acting as tidal breaks to keep the more worrisome elements like anger, worry, and isolation at bay. It was sadly to be expected for him, hence why Lea cast this exact spell on her best friend more than any other to check in on his mental wellbeing. There were many days on her island she all but forced Junior to stay there to try and relax or vent the strain off with their chats. While Godzilla bore no monopoly on losing a family member, something that he and Lea had bonded over, his situation with his family and worldview was fairly unique. Junior was stuck both wanting to honor and live up to the legacy of a father who was kind to him, and not wanting to succeed him in regards to how said father wasn’t kind to others; all while unable to talk to the only family he had left. At least Lea could always visit family known and unknown in life through her memories.

All and all, Lea knew Godzilla Junior’s mind well. What she didn’t know nor would have ever suspected was how similar Xenilla’s mental scape was to Junior's. She’d call it familial resemblance if Junior wasn’t so adamantly against the label.

Inside Xenilla’s mind was a constant storm across a dark ocean. Not a raging typhoon or a roaring thunderstorm, but a steady, grayed drizzle upon ruffled waves that ticked along at varying paces; sometimes constant and sometimes irregular. It wasn’t expressive, it wasn’t energetic, and it had none of the typical signs of extreme selfishness or narrowed minded delusions of grandeur that was the norm for the amoral. Quite the opposite actually. What she saw was both incredibly expansive but also so very isolated at the same time, with no features in sight other than a few darkened islands of thought visible in the distance. Nothing else but the drizzling downpour that seemed to leak into Lea’s own mind as it drenched her. The mind was often a symbolic thing. Rodan’s clear skies showed his unfettered optimism, Anguirus’ sturdy lands and canyons were a display of his unchanging, but benign stubbornness; and Junior's shifting seas were an uneasy mishmash of driven determination and anger born confusion. With Xenilla, Lea was only finding that behind all that raw power, ferocity, and often cruel cunning was a similarly determined being that worked with a never-ending downpour of doubt, sadness, and guilt.

This wasn't a mind of evil, leaving the Mothra doubting if she'd ever actually seen the real Xenilla before now. Except, maybe on her island some years ago. And on some level, she was sure Xenilla knew she was understanding what she saw and was aware of her discovery.

-Xenilla, we're going to have a lot to talk about once we're done here...-

Mothra Lea sighed, putting up some determination of her own to stave off the infectious doubt the rain was giving her avatar. She flew for a long time, displaced in space and time as she moved from the conscious world to the blank subconscious. Among the dark void she spied a shimmering up ahead and moved over to it. The light reflected onto Lea's representation as she stopped short of flying into it. The glimmering mass was a set of glowing, vaguely rhombus shaped doorways; one she recognized a gateway to a memory.

-Appears we were right, those are genetic memories!-

Lea looked closer at the group Xenilla had floating before her. His volume was far smaller than her own. Lea had entire halls of gateways in her mind, one for each ancestor. In Xenilla's case though, she actually wasn't quite sure of the actual number beyond it being smaller. There were two shapes, but one of them was so hopelessly irregular it looked less like a rhombus and more like a clustered mess of angles. And even then, the defined and clean rhombus was an unnatural color for the gateways she'd seen. Her maternal line's gates were greens and golds, and her paternal lineage was orange and dark steel. This one was neon blue of all hues. More specifically a kind of bright blue that reminded her a lot of a certain kaiju. Lea's eyes widened as her mind trailed back to her explaining the magic behind the lineage memories not five minutes ago, how it "traced with the blood". The same blood Xenilla was literally born from after it had been exposed to her mother's magic.

-Oh my Tanaka... He really does have some of Godzilla Senior's memories!-

The shock was understandable, after all this was the first time she'd ever seen someone else display a trait that until now; had been completely restricted to her family. They’d have much to talk about indeed.

Lea turned her attention to the other glowing spot, but this one was just as perplexing at first as the other. While it was green with a gold trim, as indicative of the mothra line, the shape was hopelessly irregular and looked more like a bunch of haphazardly set imperfect angles. The glow given off by it was similarly erratic, the organized golden trim her memory gates had that formed the family seal upon the center was jumbled up, messy, and almost unrecognizable. Really the best way she could compare it was that it looked like six or seven gates stretched, pulled, and then melted together.

-Looks like my mother did rub off on you in more ways than one. Xenilla, what all did you see?-

Lea worked her magic upon the gateway and after some trial and error, managed to pry it open to fly through. The parade of imagery that greeted Xenilla on the day of his birth became known to Lea, memories of a dozen dozen ancestors from seven hundred centuries ago all forced their way into her mind at once. Everything was on fire, everything was dying. Hell had come to earth, and all was being destroyed. A tall figure, dozens of meters tall stood in the blaze. Burning lights streamed from its maw as it towered over the murdering flames. As Lea winced and strained through the cornucopia of pain assaulting every one of her senses, she forced the vagueness of the memory away to see the details.

More of its features became apparent as it turned to the point of view. Almost impossibly large wings of eerie light, spurn from broad, spike capped shoulders; snapped to the sides across the smoke and flames. A set of three horns, two upon the brows and one upon the snout, reflected the glow coming from the rampaging deity’s eyes. What Xenilla had mistaken for his father turned out to be someone magnitudes worse. It trampled any still living underfoot, scorching others with omnicidal flames from its maw before calling down light from the sky like falling stars to glass everything else that remained.

This wasn’t destruction wrought by a kaiju, even that left rubble or scattered survivors in the wake; nor was it the actions of a predator taking life to sustain life. This was completely erasing what once was, hundreds upon thousands upon millions of life; human, fae, animal, and beyond, all giving silent or verbal death cries as they were no more. Even the world’s life stream itself, its magic, its mana, was crying out in agony.

Lea felt herself grow cold as she was forced to see the points of view for the multitudes of mothra and battra long since passed as they began to be killed off in droves by the same being who’d nurtured and mentored them since the lines began. It was rare for Lea to access the memories of her father’s side, but here she had no choice. Dozens of mothra were dying every moment and just as many battra were being extinguished with them. Many were so shocked at first they didn’t even see it coming, many more were so filled with horror and grief to the point their only conscious thought as their lives were torn away by claw, beam, or blade was “Why?”. The last hundred rallied together, still wrought with grief, panic, and fear as they swarmed the one once called Reijuu, lifting him up for a desperate flight to the north seas. Only thirty were left by the time they were forced to land on Attu island. Unnatural auroras filled a sky crisscrossed with energy beams and magic bursts. Falling masses of flames, the burning corpses of guardian moths, were so common they littered the ground and evaporated huge swaths of sea into fog midst their smoking remains.

With more and more dying every second as the island-sized rune and spell was drawn, calling forth every scrap of magic the world could muster, only two were left alive by the time the seal was complete and Bagan was entombed.

And Lea saw all of this play out in a matter of a few seconds. Every haunting or flashback she had of her father’s death at Godzilla Senior’s jaws were nothing compared to this horror. There had been a reason she avoided looking at this time period at all in her own memories, and she had just been forced to watch it over and over again more than four hundred times.

Lea broke out of the spell and fell to the ground, uncontrollably convulsing, screaming, and spasming like she was having a seizure and panic attack at the same time. Ripping out of the realm he’d been caught up in as well, Xenilla had to hit himself in the gut to unclasp his chest after he’d felt the wind get knocked out of his contracting lungs. Heaving in breath and shaking himself off to refocus, he was quick to spot the thrashing changeling. His mind was still playing catch-up to what all just happened, but for now he had to focus on what was in front of him. He scooped up the squirming Lea, craning his head back to avoid getting smacked in face by one of her hooves, and carried her free of the now sparking circle of runes and crystals.

He didn’t have a second of free thought before he was soon joined by the frantic Shobijin and a similarly alarmed Twilight Sparkle, who’d just returned from a book run and came running herself as soon as she heard the screaming.

“What’s going on in here-!!!! LEA!”

At the same time and just outside of the castle, Captain Blueberry Frost was tipsily walking back to her quarters with her “designated trotter”, the disguised Godzilla Junior in tow. Or at least he was disguised in theory. Thinking back to Berry Punch recognizing him despite having only possibly being able to see any portion of him, and a small portion at that given he only had his goggles removed, he was beginning to suspect the only soul meant to be tricked by this set up was himself. After all he was a good head to two heads taller and much bulkier than any equine he’d seen in life, sans a pair of alicorns, and from what he’d found out about the species there was only one or two outlier individuals across the nation even approaching his size. Even covered up from horn to hoof, Junior literally stood heads and shoulders above the crowd he stuck out from. With this in mind, he gave Blueberry Frost a slightly unamused look he was sure she could see right through his mask.

-You knew I’d need a push to leave, so you made a trick to get me to even before asking. Frost, you’re half drunk and talk weird, but it seems like you’re a lot smarter than you let on.-

Blueberry Frost, still blushing in the face from her buzz, snickered and leaned on Junior as they approached the barracks door.

“Anyone evah’ tell ye’ that ye’r real warm and muscley? I mean ye’r built like ‘ah tank an’ tall as a horse, but ye’r actually kinda snuggly~!”

She babbled, laughing and rubbing up against the stallion easily five times her weight due to said build and height. Junior just grumbled.

“This that flirting we were talking about? Don’t tell me you’re-”

“Naaah naaaah! I just being friendly, ye’r not m’ah type hehehe!”

Godzilla rolled his eyes at her slurred laughter.

“And are you sure no one will have noticed my absence?”

“Oooh don’t ye’ worry ‘bout nothin’! Other guards, they gottts an honor code so no snitchin’, and Proincess Celestia and Luna are ooff welcoming Proincess Cadance and Prawnce Shining Armor back from the Crystal-... Oh lookie! Thar they are!”

Captain Frost pointed her hoof out to the south. Looking in the way as indicated, Junior spotted the now familiar forms of the alicorn sisters trotting down the path immediately leading up to the main castle gate, which was visible from the side route they’d taken up around the western side of the castle to get to the barracks and training yard. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were enjoying a happy reunion with a pastel pink alicorn and blue-on-white unicorn.

-That must be the Crystal Empire royalty I’ve been told about… Hey wait a minute, why do they have those titles if they’re ruling an empire?-

He started to raise an eyebrow to ponder this next bit of Equestrian bafflement when he felt something else course over his senses. It wasn’t a sight nor a smell nor a sound, but rather almost like all of his major senses going off at once in a very specific manner. That could only mean one thing. Godzilla Junior stole the moment to close his eyes and focused on the sensation, his mind practically pointing out the offending information almost as blatantly as if he were looking at a picture. There was another of his species nearby, another godzillasaurus. Male, healthy, and was close-by recently. Junior’s expression turned to a very slight sneer as it showed the only possibility.

-Xenilla is up there…-

He mentally hissed, his special homing practically pointing him to Xenilla’s location like a compass now that it had been revealed after Xenilla; unbeknownst to Junior, left the rune circle Lea had contained him in. He could already feel his blood broiling. Junior looked up, almost like he could actually see his rival through multiple walls and floors. Xenilla was less than fifty meters away, across several floors and walls. The consideration of how he’d managed to get there without Junior noticing caused even more alarm and worry.

-He must have come while we were at the pub. This can’t be good.-

He tried to reign in his anger and suspicion best he could, reminding himself of what Luna had told him on another one of her nightly visits when he was recovering. How after about two weeks since their arrival, a delayed time given the gyaos attack and some happenings in the Crystal Empire, the kaiju were going to be brought back to Canterlot for some sort of assessment. And now that they knew more kaiju were in Equestria and not the kind that could probably be brought over, he suspected some sort of defense planning might be in order. It would have worked to throw some water on his burning anger.

Except it failed because of what Blueberry Frost said next as she looked at the reunited royalty.

“Crystal Empire train musta’ come in while we were chowing down. ‘Ey, wonder where that kaiju they were watchin’ is? He was trekkin’ with ‘em.”

Junior froze, looking back in the direction Xenilla was.

-... Why IS he so far ahead of them? Not like Equestrians to be careless. He's up to something...-

That was when the second feeling pulsed through his veins as it settled over him. The unmistakable traces of Terran magic sent a chill into every pore, muscle, and bone within himself. A Terran magic Junior was so familiar with he didn’t even need his very sharp hearing to detect the faint screams to know who it was and that something was very, very wrong.

Junior’s eyes burst open, traces of a blue grow crossing out from both them and his mane as he tore past Blueberry Frost. He snarled beastially, ripping the doorway to the barracks open to charge through the castle at a breakneck pace so quick he didn’t even hear Blueberry Frost calling after him after being snapped out of her drunken daze.

“What the-Huh?! Godzi- Junior! Junior what’s wrong?!”

All she heard echoing down from the halls and exiting the doorway was the aftershocks of a tremendous roar and the sound of floor-cracking hoofsteps.

At the same time all chaos had broken loose in Twilight and Lea’s study. The shobijin were attempting song after enchanted song to try and rouse their patron out of her panic attack, Xenilla doing his best to try and restrain the flailing, crying, and screaming changeling without hurting him; as Twilight Sparkle rapid fire-flipped through book after book on Equestrian medical magic to try and find a local solution or anything that might help.

“O-Oh okay! I think I got it!”

Twilight yelped, spinning around with a good dozen books still being held up by her magic. With her horn glowing, a light flashed over her eyes, giving Xenilla ample warning to turn his head to the side and put up a small barrier just in case things went south… which is exactly what happened when the mass of purple light born spell energy ricocheted off Lea’s horn and would have smacked him right in the face; the barrier shredding the blast into smaller particulates of light that fizzled out into puffs of violet smoke. Twilight grunted, wincing as the room became muted out by another one of Lea’s pained shrieks.

“What’s happened to her exactly?!”

The alicorn yelped, covering her ears. Moll and Lora cut off their sixth failed song attempt and responded, fluttering up to her on their tiny breezie wings.

“Phantom pains, she’s experiencing what her ancestors did, in the extinction hour!”

They spoke in quasi-unison, earning a baffled look from Twilight.

“The what?!”

“An hour 70,000 years ago on Terra, the humans called it the Toba extinction. She’s been avoiding looking at that hour for all but glimpses.”

Lora and Moll muttered, tearfully looking back at the squirming Lea as Xenilla was forced to pin her down to keep her from hurting herself in her flailing.

“Now she’s living it from all of her ancestors that died that day. Hundreds of them…”

Twilight was just about to try another spell when a low rumble ripped through the floor, shaking the dust off some of the cabinets and ceiling. It didn’t stop, only growing louder and stronger. The sound of the double doors down the hall shattering as they were blown off their hinges canceled out everyone but the still oblivious and screaming Mothra Lea. Xenilla sensed who it was before they rammed down the doorway to make their entrance in a shower of splinters, wood dust, and other debris.

Heavy breathing shoved some of the particulates away, an eerie blue light visible through the cloud. The cloud vanished as soon as it came, revealing Godzilla Junior standing in the doorway with the burnt remains of what looked like a cloak falling off his back and into cinders. He looked about the frozen room with wide, bright red in his eyes that drowned out the yellow of his irises. He saw Twilight Sparkle, Lea’s collaborator and the Shobijin off to the side of the room with Twilight readying some kind of magic. He saw Lea’s symbol etched onto the floor, showing she had been working her magic. He also saw Xenilla’s crystals intrusively stabbed into the symbol. And of course, there was the matter of his best friend screaming in agony with a ruffled looking Xenilla pinning her down.

Junior’s breaths turned to bestial snarls as he drew all the wrong conclusions, blue smoke puffing out from between his jaws and nose. Xenilla could feel the blood draining from his face. He had cared for this being most of his life in his own way, he was family, and he was now stuck in the form of a colorful equine. By all accounts, his little brother shouldn’t have been what he was right now with that look in his eye. Terrifying. The oldest son of Godzilla Senior tried to slowly rise to his feet and step away from Lea, keeping his posture and face as calm as he could without any of his usual mannerisms of smugness or pride to try and look as unthreatening as possible. Had he not needed them for locomotion, he’d have his forearms raised up. With Twilight Sparkle and Shobijin in too much of a stupor to do anything, it fell upon Xenilla to try and defuse the situation.

Unfortunately, in his covertly panicked state, he picked the wrong word. He picked the worst label possible.

“Icka-Icka’brod… Brother, this isn’t-”

Junior sucked in his breath and let out a monstrous roar and declaration that gave Celestia’s Royal Canterlot Voice a run for its money, cracking windows several floors away and rattling the castle as he repeated the exact line he spoke to Xenilla weeks ago on Solgell Island.

“I’m not YOUR BROTHER!”

He rushed forward with such ferocity and speed Xenilla couldn’t dodge out of the way or attempt to push back by physical might or telekinesis. Junior rammed into his brother with a magnitude of force, charging backwards after yanking the other kaiju-stallion off the ground and slamming into the stony wall behind them. In an instant the rock shattered like glass and the two were in freefall, barreling towards Canterlot Mountain in the rural rocksides bordering the castle. Not content with using the stunned Xenilla as a ram once they hit the ground, Godzilla Junior bit down loosely on Xenilla’s collar and unleashed a torrent of nuclear fire that flooded over Xenilla’s torso and right shoulder area. He kept firing until they hit the mountainside outside the city, the resulting crash loud enough to sound like a meteor had just come falling down.

Xenilla coughed as he picked up his bruised, burned, and bloodied form out of the crater he’d created. His wounds started to mend, pain as much unto him in healing as it was in affliction, as he tried to stand. His mind was in a whirlwind of panic, pain, and confusion as everything from his survival instincts to Blade Dancer’s words played through his mind. He could fight and perpetuate this conflict or he could try to talk and end it.

But as far as the enraged kaiju ripping himself free of the rubble to lunge at Xenilla was concerned, he was ending it in a different way.

===================
Canterlot Mainstreet
===================

Princess Celestia and company were anything but oblivious to the impact force coming from the mountain, all eyes trained upon the spire of rock and forest that jutted out from behind the castle.

“What was that?”

Princess Cadance muttered in a half hushed tone.

A beam of blue light shot up into the sky briefly, parting some cumulus clouds on its way up to scorching the heavens. Princess Luna recognized it before her sister due to past experiences. Instantly the blue alicorn felt a filter of dread and selfless fear wash through her.

“Junior…”

She whispered with bated breath, eyes wide as she spread her wings to take off. For Godzilla to be busting out the beam attack and for that impact to be as tremendous as it was, it had to be serious. She didn’t know what her friend was fighting, but she’d be condemned to Tartarus before she let him break into a serious brawl near her and she stay on the sidelines. Princess Celestia was all too observant of both the situation and her sibling, taking a pre-take off posture and spreading her even more enormous wingspan.

“Sister, Cadenza, with me! Whatever is going on up there we must contain it. Shining Armor, keep everypony away from the mountainside and be ready to evacuate the castle grounds if the fighting gets too close!”

She barked in an authority-riddled tone very few had heard and even fewer could resist. Princess Celestia was a gentle soul, but not one to be questioned when she called for action; as souls over the millennia ranging from minotaurs to unruly gryphons to fully grown dragons had found out. Falling back on his still sharp military training, the former Captain of the Canterlot Guard saluted the lead alicorn as the trio all assumed the same pose before launching themselves up into the air in a surprising burst of speed and wind. As they headed towards the mountainside, Shining Armor turned to address the guards present, a couple of the the Canterlot night guard, a castle guard, a pair of crystal guardstallions; and Blade Dancer. It didn’t matter really anymore if he technically traded his military rank for a royal one, he still was a protege of Captain Stalwart Sentry; and he knew how to bark some orders.

“Alright you heard the Princess! This will be an S class mission detail! I need three of you to clear this block, three for the next block south, and two to go to Captain Frost to send word for the castle grounds to be prepared for evacuation!”

Blade Dancer nodded as the commands were given, listening but unable to totally zone out from the now glowing light show visible on the mountainside. Another explosion shook the premises as the alicorns turned around the edge of the mountain and left view. This time however, among the rocks and dust thrown into the air, Blade Dancer spotted something else. Crystals. Her heart nearly stopped cold.

-Xen!-

=============
Mountainside
=============

Xenilla was sent rolling and tumbling backwards across the ground in a shower of shattered crystals he’d attempted to use as cover. Patches of his fur were still smoking and smoldering when he struggled up to his feet, spitting out the metallic tasting wad of blood that had pooled in his mouth. Still dazed, he couldn’t turn around in time to avoid the sole surviving crystal being used as a club to smash itself across the back of his head, following by a return blow to the side of his face that shattered half the crystal.

Godzilla Junior hissed, biting down and crunching the surviving half of crystal. Glimmering fragments littered the ground, reflecting the blue light coming off the smoke and plasma constantly flickering out from between Godzilla’s teeth. Xenilla’s healing was working overtime across the more important parts of his body like the numerous shattered ribs and fractured skull, leaving the numerous bruises, cuts, and burns across his skin slow to mend. He managed to shove himself into he air with a wave of telekinesis, hovering his ragged body a few feet off the ground. The crystal kaiju spat out a broken tooth, coughing and huffing haggardly in his breaths.

“I- wasn’t- trying t-o hurt your friend!”

His plea fell on deaf ears and a closed mind. As far as Junior was convinced, everything spoke to the contrary. Lea was on the floor screaming and bruised, obviously having been attacked. Princess Twilight Sparkle, Lea’s local collaborator, was off to the side with the Shobijin and readying her magic; assuredly to protect the faeries and launch a counterattack on the invader. And Xenilla wasn’t with the royals he was supposed to be, he’d snuck away and invaded the castle to find Lea while she was alone since Junior had been outside. As far as Junior was concerned and convinced, his worst enemy had just intended to break the peace honor the Equestrians called for and tried to kill his best friend while she could be taken by surprise and be alone; with none of the kaiju or older alicorns present to help her. It all made perfect sense to him. And if Xenilla intended to break the peace, Junior was going to make sure he broke nothing or no one else.

And the fact he hated the kaiju before him arguably more than anyone else definitely helped. Xenilla had been a nightmare for him for over two decades. A nightmare he intended to wake up from now.

“When have you ever not hurt anyone, Xenilla?!”

Junior was admittedly a bit surprised at Xenilla’s response. He was used to the smug boasting or callousness he’d seen for years, both in their personal battles or when Xenilla was commanding some Mutations Junior was fighting. Instead though, Xenilla actually seemed saddened when he responded. He picked himself up as best he could, not puffing his chest out or holding his head high but instead maintaining a passive posture.

-He’s on a warpath. If I fight back, it’ll only make it worse.-

He sighed, coughing a bit due to exhaling, while looking at Junior in what could best be described as a mix of tiredness and sincerity.

-Don’t say I didn’t try, Blades…-

“Not you, I never wanted to hurt you… What happened was-”

Godzilla Junior cut him off with a roar one couldn’t expect an equine to be able to make, for it was one Xenilla had heard dozens of times before from a beast as big as a walking mountain. Junior cut the roar off, huffing and snorting through his flared nose before speaking with a hateful growl.

“You invaded my home, you hurt my friends, you threatened my world. You caused a war!”

“I know I did! But I had a reason! I had to do it and I hated every second of it!”

Xenilla called out in his plea. The response he got was an enraged stream of nuclear energy aimed at his face. Xenilla threw his hooves up and the patches of slick fur on his shoulders lit up as he summoned forth a shield. The beam and barrier clashed for a time, Xenilla’s effort successfully deflecting portions of Godzilla’s beam off to the sides. But Junior was far from done. He yelled in berserk fury while emitting his ray, amplifying the glow and intensity while taking a shaking step forward. Xenilla grunted and strained, his hindlegs beginning to slide backwards across the rocky mountainside. The malice and hatred within Junior intensified by the second as Xenilla still withstood his assault. His reactor of a heart began to work overtime, siphoning power away from all sources and intensifying itself to match its owner’s wrath, going to dangerous levels. Numerous scars, some decades old, returned to Junior’s outward appearance.

Xenilla squinted through the assault, holding off his brother’s attack for a time. But even he couldn’t withstand the out of control power spike Godzilla was going through and soon the beam ate through his shield. Xenilla was forced to dodge out of the way, the beam burning him across his right arm and shoulder before it raked itself across the mountainside and carved a six meter-deep gouge into it.

Seeing Xenilla alive, even if he was smoking and sent sliding a good three feet backwards, only caused Junior’s rage, hatred, and fury to become totally unbridled. His mane and eyes were glowing so bright now they were practically white. As his body drew in all the power it could from his tissue, it caused some of his other powers to turn off and on at random. Each step was a small nuclear pulse that shattered the rock underneath it, and Junior’s regeneration all but turned off entirely as the intense glow from his mane and eyes spread to flesh under the scar tissue and lit them up.

Seeing the old wounds on his sibling caused Xenilla to start getting flashbacks to the dozens of wounds he’d see Godzilla incur from just fighting the Mutations alone. Duels with the new Megaguirus leaving him slashed and stabbed, several rounds with a gorged Pulgasari that left him battered; or the numerous times Xenilla was sure Godzilla would kill one of his pawns outright if it was one on one so he’d send multiple Mutations out to places he knew Godzilla would be close to and respond. All the Mutations Xenilla had all but forced him to fight time and time again, winning the battles but not going unscathed. This state Junior was in, one riddled with signs of injury and trauma, was Junior’s true appearance; not the one typically seen where said marks were largely masked by his regeneration. This was the first time Xenilla saw him like this, filling his mind with horror soon replaced by deep guilt as the memories flashed before him.

-What have I done to you…-

Junior meanwhile grunted and hissed, obviously in a world of pain from his ferocious powers tearing at his own body.

“You hurt the humans, you threatened my mother!”

“I know! I’m sorry! But you-”

Godzilla roared as sparks of red replaced the sparks of blue jumping across his body and mane. The same wrath that his father felt after Junior’s apparent death, one that caused his already strained powers to run wild; the same fury that ultimately killed him and the same power Junior absorbed from his predecessor. It was happening again. Xenilla felt a stone of dread and horror fall into his stomach as he saw the patches of red flicker across his sibling’s body, his temperature spiking so badly that steam was coming off him. Junior had completely lost control by the time he stomped on the ground in a massive nuclear pulse. The resulting shockwave ripped into the mountainside and leveled several trees that lay within the ten meter radius.

Xenilla groaned as he struggled back to his feet, the world having gone black after the shockwave threw him so hard against a boulder that his vision had been knocked out temporarily. He felt the ground shake as footsteps approached him.

“You’re a threat to this world and my own, Xenilla. You took away any chance at peace I’d have…”

A searing hot hoof knocked into Xenilla’s jaw and pinned him against the rocks behind him with a searingly hot hoof. His vision was restored in the eye of his that hadn’t swelled shut, greeting him to the sight of a brother teetering on the edge of a metaphorical and literal meltdown. Godzilla’s burning eyes and flaming breath burned at his muzzle and mind. Xenilla felt a tear sting his good eye, vision locked on the growing, death bringing red spreading through Junior’s body.

“Br-Brother! Your power! Your heart, it’ll kill you!”

He choked. The enraged kaiju ignored his warning and instead spoke in a shockingly and terrifying quiet voice, throwing one final guilty charge against Xenilla as the burning judgement grew in his throat.

“You tried to kill my father…”

Just before Xenilla could see the final light that meant a permanent lights out, a golden ray of magic slammed into Godzilla’s broadside and knocked him away from Xenilla and into the mountainside. The solar beam was soon joined by a glimmering ray of sky blue magic that Xenilla recognized, and finally a bolt of dark blue magic he did not. Princess Celestia, Cadance, and Luna flew over, hovering in the air while keeping their beams locked on Godzilla Junior for several long seconds as he bore backwards into a small hill of rubble. They cut off the assault and watched. Celestia watched the rubble with stoic determination, Cadance cast a shocked glance to the still downed and battered Xenilla, while Luna watched the rock pile while bearing a more shocked and worrisome expression than her sister.

All knew not to waste time asking what was going on, their priority was breaking the fight up once they saw the parties involved. A task not so easily fulfilled when a tremendous bellow rattled the rock pile. A flash of red and blue light and a nuclear pulse forewarned the ensuing explosion as Godzilla came charging out his entombment. His body littered with burning lights, his eyes were trained on the still downed Xenilla with a killing intent. He charged, as much galloping across the smoldering rocks as he was gripping and ripping his way along over them. Not once did he look to the alicorns, even after a few bursts from Cadance shot around him or glanced off his shoulder. A continuous beam from Celestia struck him on the chest, stopping him to a grind. But even as he was enduring the continuous solar flare, Godzilla didn’t detract from his goal. Crackles of light surrounded his body and a nuclear pulse tore free from his torso, deflecting the blast and shattering it. Now conscious of his faced resistance, Godzilla screamed out in a wrathful tone.

“DON’T! INTERFERE!”

The alicorns could feel the burning air rushing past them at the call, but nevertheless readied for another barrage with Luna leading the effort. She craned her neck up and closed her eyes as energy pooled up the spiral of her horn and collected in a sphere on top of it. With a frown on her face and a glow in her cutiemark and now opened eyes, she was about to fire when a blur of red shot past her. The speeding form launched itself at Xenilla just as Godzilla got within the last five meters, and as soon as he saw what it was he stopped.

With her breath and heart racing and the alicorns hovering up above, Blade Dancer stood above Xenilla with one of her wingblades leveled at Godzilla’s throat. It didn’t matter if they both knew it’d probably be useless in this situation, she wasn’t budging. Godzilla snarled, stepping to the side like a flanking predator as he spat venom and licking flames. Blade Dancer quickly adjusted her stance to avoid the flanking and reaffirmed her outstretched blade while keeping the other at the ready. She snapped in her tone.

“Get! BACK!”

Godzilla snarled, baring his char covered fangs. There was a thousand different ways he could get through such a defense. Beam of burning light, a massive shock wave, just getting close and using the sheer heat to force her away, a use of his titanic strength. But of the near endless means to overcome the opposition of a mortal with a blade, none of them were harm free, just as few non lethal. That was the only thought that could momentarily rupture his chain of fury, and was the only thing keeping him away. Didn’t mean he was giving up however, slowly circling the rotating mare to try and figure out something, flanking Blade Dancer to get at Xenilla like a stalking predator, only for Blade Dancer to adjust her stance each time to keep facing him. The alicorns stay closed but held their fire just in case of the worst. They were all on a hair trigger with their pool of magic. While separation and containment was the priority, the main reason they weren’t directly launching themselves into the fray was a full on burst from the magic spheres held up by the three combined could easily level a mountain if directed to. But Princess Luna saw Godzilla’s pause in motion upon being confronted with Blade Dancer and got an idea. She canceled out her magic and hovered down, putting her hooves to the ground directly between Godzilla and Blade Dancer.

She did have to hold up a field of magic to cloak her form to protect her from the intense heat, but she didn’t use any spells or hexes of any sort. She tucked in her wings and looked at Godzilla. At first her face was plain, unemotive; but slowly it morphed into a tiny, saddened frown as she shook her head slowly. The Princess of the Night looked at the kaiju, her friend and in some ways confidant, and spoke in a whisper.

“Junior… stop, please.”

Godzilla growled lowly, looking at the saddened alicorn and determined pegasus that stood in his way; as well as a brief glance at the two other alicorns hovering overhead with magic at the ready. He looked back at Luna when she spoke to him in a quiet, pleading tone.

“Whatever he did to cause this, we’ll handle it together… Please, calm down.”

A long time passed. Godzilla’s expression lightened a bit, from a fang bearing snarl into only minorly dulled shock. The glow across his form dimmed and the redness receded, as if burnt off by the steam coming off his back and shoulders. There were dozens of ways he could play out the next two seconds that ended in him doing what he set out to do several minutes ago and wanted to do for twenty years: end Xenilla. But every single one meant harming two innocents, Cadance and Blade Dancer; as well hurting his friends, Celestia and… Luna.

What finally stopped Junior wasn’t just the fact he would have to do so to finally stop this nightmare, it was the fact that somewhere inside he was heavily tempted to, consequences be damned. To be a hateful force of nature like the all those previous who bore the name “Godzilla”. To throw out every bit of restraint about putting others first the way he’d valued it and lived by for twenty years. Deep inside, some part of him wanted to do just that and that is what terrified the kaiju enough to stop him cold. The partial meltdown receded, and a scarred Junior stood still even as Celestia and Cadance’s magic placed him in light born restraints, the alicorns in question landing on either side of Luna. Princess Celestia looked at the battlefield carnage, both on the mountainside and the two kaiju. She sighed in a saddened tone while keeping a firm face, having hoped this was not going to be the result of the reunion.

“.... I see maybe I was wrong about some things…”

She whispered to Luna, looking to the bloodied and beaten Xenilla as Blade Dancer tried to tend to him.

“Sister please, there must be an explanation! He wouldn’t do this without a reason.”

Celestia felt her frown grow as Blade Dancer tearfully propped up the much larger stallion on her shoulder.

-I really hope so Lulu…-

The attention was quickly drawn away by Princess Cadance, but not by her own volition. The pink and pastel alicorn’s face briefly contorted with pain and she winked an eye shut whilst sucking in a breath to try and dull the sudden jolt she received. The leader of the Crystal Empire crumbled a bit in her stance, twitching in pain while putting a hoof to her aching lower stomach. So much focus was drawn away from the moment that her magic faltered entirely, leaving Celestia as the only one retraining Godzilla Junior. Luna gasped, leaning over and putting a hoof and wing around the stumbling alicorn.

“Cadenza, what’s wrong!?”

"I don't- know! Argk!"

With two of three alicorns distracted and Godzilla now looking back at Xenilla, Celestia had a long moment to worry about what hell might break loose when two sprites of light and a fourth alicorn zoomed over to their position. Princess Twilight Sparkle and the Shobijin pulled up beside all parties, Twilight yelling to her teacher as Moll and Lora did the same to Junior.

“Princess Celestia stop!”

“Godzilla Junior, you must cease!”

“He didn’t hurt Lea, this was all a misunderstanding!”

Princess Celestia blinked twice and straightened up, more than a bit confused.

“What’s this about Lady Lea?”

Moll and Lora turned around and faced the alicorns, dimming their magic and revealing their breezie forms.

“A memory spell gone awry your majesty! Mothra Lea got stuck experiencing the pains her ancestors felt while re-living their memories. And so, she collapsed screaming. And by the time Godzilla heard her screams and rushed to come and see what was wrong-”

This time it was Twilight finishing the twins’ sentence.

“-Xenilla was already in the room with me trying to help. He was holding Lea down so she didn’t hurt herself, so when Godzilla came in he thought Xenilla was attacking her and me behind your backs.”

“And how is she now?”

Celestia said, looking between the newcomers and the tower in the castle that now had a hole in its side several stories up.

“We finally found a spell that worked to cancel out the memories when paired with one of the faeries’ songs. She’ll be unconscious for awhile but she’s out of the painful ordeals.”

Godzilla listened close and played out the scene that unfolded with the new information in mind. While he didn’t know Princess Twilight Sparkle very well, he wasn’t going to reject what she said on the fact that if Lea trusted her as much as he knew she did than she had to be on the right side. And even if he was questioning the youngest alicorn, it didn’t take him knowing Lea and the Shobijin for years to know Moll and Lora would be the last souls to lie on someone like Xenilla’s behalf, especially when a hurt Mothra Lea was involved. All this bit of chaos he’d stirred up, busting holes in the castle that had welcomed him in, probably terrifying Twilight and the Shobijin half to death, violating the peace agreement he’d promised Celestia and Luna, and finding himself so lost in rage and hatred that he nearly lost control. He nearly lost it so badly he was tempted to hurt a friend and an innocent to get at what he wanted to.

And it was all because he misunderstood something and nearly mauled someone who wasn’t doing any harm. And that was something he still wanted to do on some level, even now that he knew it was wrong. “Moron” was added to the long list of ‘not very pleasant’ labels Junior was mentally taking onto himself.

Princess Celestia may have been about to say something to the kaiju when a groaning Princess Cadance stumbled and let attempts to summon forth magic again falter entirely. Her brow quickly raised, Celestia nodded to Luna and they rearranged themselves even as the two alicorns kept the bindings and containment on Godzilla. Lifting up her left wing, Celestia tucked her adoptive niece into the underside of it, holding her close and nuzzling her while humming softly to help ease away the pain. Cadance still winced a bit, but the pain was gradually replaced by soreness and she was able to bear standing up on three hooves while applying gentle pressure to her belly with the fourth. Princess Celestia sighed with a small frown.

“One thing at a time… Accident or not, I’m afraid he’s proven the need to be restrained for both his own and everypony else’s safety. At least until the situation quells some.”

Many eyes fell upon Godzilla Junior. It looked as if he was about to act or say something while glaring at the wounded in the crowd’s number, perhaps a return to wrath and break free of his bonds. Before such could happen however, a raspy voice interjected.

“Let him go…”

Xenilla, propped up by Blade Dancer, wiped down blood off his previously busted nose. He held his head low, letting his bangs fall down in front of his downcast eyes. He couldn’t look his brother in the face as he spoke again.

“It’s alright… Let him go.”

“Xen!”

Blade Dancer yelped in a protest, she was about say more when Xenilla tilted his head over to glance at the mare and look her in the eye. He wasn’t expressively sad or downtrodden, she knew him better than to be that. But, the expression upon his eye and brow was more telling than most words could be. Xenilla’s grayed eyes, filled with deep sadness, drowned her vision before he looked back at the ground after silencing her. He whispered quietly.

“Told you, hopeless…”

He sighed, hanging his head downwards in a way that his bloodstained mane covered most of his face.

“It was an accident, and I heal fast. Princesses, please let him go. He won’t hurt anyone…”

A long moment of contemplation and silent conversation between the more conscious alicorns, Celestia and Luna stole a breath and removed their magical bindings from Junor. While the former kept at the ready immediately, Junior held his stance even as he looked down at his rival. Blade Dancer patted at Princess Luna’s side, signalling her to stand aside for a moment. When she did so however, Godzilla couldn’t help but be quite surprised, if still unmoved, by the sadness broiling into anger rippling across her twitching face. Xenilla might have given up, but she hadn't. And kaiju or not, she was Blade Cheryll Dancer and she was giving him a piece of her mind!

“It. was all. An Act!”

She snapped at Godzilla, eyes still damp as she held Xenilla close to her.

“.. What was?”

“He told me and if he’s not going to tell you; I will!”

She snapped, standing up to a stallion easily four times her mass. The edges of her eyes were a bit damp.

“The war, all the conflict he caused between you two. He wanted to toughen you up, keep you safe so that what happened to your father wouldn’t happen to you. He never wanted to take your world, he was just trying to protect and keep his little brother safe!”

A pair of voices spoke up from beside Blade Dancer, the glowing forms of the shobijin, Moll and Lora, sheepishly hovering out from behind the alicorns and over to Junior.

“She may be right. We too saw Xenilla’s mind when Mothra traveled through it. He doesn’t have an evil one. Careless, angry, and smug for sure; but not evil. And… we saw the guiding trait of his conscious.”

“And what was that...?”

Moll and Lora turned around, looking to each other before casting their dour eyes upon Blade Dancer.

“Guilt.”

Junior’s eyes widened slightly as he very unwillingly gave the thought some contemplation. Blade Dancer’s words on their own he wouldn’t believe, not in this circumstance. But the shobijin were a pair of names he trusted unconditionally. In the decades of knowing them, he never knew them to lie or be wrong about what they knew. He trusted them and their word, and he was desperately trying not to do that for the first time. Xenilla was a patricidal monster who threatened his world, his friends, and his sole surviving family, lost his chance at forgiveness a dozen times over, killed any chance for peace Junior would ever have, constantly reminded him of parents past every time Junior even looked at him, and was something he’d never see as anything short of a threat to be put down. He had to be this and nothing else for it to make sense. Junior was brought into this world of Equestria while trying to kill him, and he had an unspoken vow to do just that once they were back on Terra. Xenilla was a mistake the world was better off without and he intended to see that mistake corrected. This nonsense about him being anything else had to be a lie.

And yet, in some tiny back corner of his mind, there was the possibility it was the truth. But if the rage that was born of being lied to was bad, the malice he was soon tasting at the thought it could all be truth was ten times worse. He wanted to rush forward and finish off his foe while he was weakened and unaware, but that would mean probably killing Blade Dancer. He wanted to unleash his wrath via a beam or shockwave to burn Xenilla out of existence, but that would mean burning or seriously hurting the alicorns, especially Luna and Celestia, two souls that had unfailingly been kind and understanding to him since a rough start. Taking revenge on Xenilla would mean hurting or killing an innocent or friends. He hated having to control himself, the thing that he felt divided him and the Mutations he fought the most; but he also hated the fact such thoughts even tempted him.

And then there was the fact this whole talk of Xenilla trying tough love and playing the villain made Godzilla out to be a lot of things he didn’t like. It meant so much of what he'd sacrificed and slaved over was all for some act like a work of fiction. It didn't matter. Filled with anger and confused sadness, he could only mutter a hollow chuckle and force a small, toothy smile.

“Everything I’ve done… Every sacrifice or pain I went through to try and prove myself different and save lives. Twenty years of it all; and it was all because of an act? Two decades of worthlessness… So, I’m a monster and a fool...”

Blade Dancer cringed, shaking her head in a concoction of confusion and frustration.

“N-No! That’s not what he or I meant at all!”

Godzilla ignored her, looking at Xenilla. Feeling the eyes upon him, the older kaiju raised his head back up, looking through his messy bangs with a solemn expression. There was a hint of glinting under his eyes. This was why he lied to Blade Dancer about having any form of love for anything, in this case familial. When he let it show, it hurt enough to even break his mental barriers and force him to emote.

“Br-.. Junior, I-”

He was cut short by a half hushed, growling voice from his brother. Junior’s glare cut right through Xenilla even as his eyes flashed red.

“I, hate you.”

“... I know.”

His mind caught in a storm and not wanting to risk another blow up, Godzilla turned and started to walk down the mountainside and towards the woods, not looking at anything else as he blankly stared ahead and marched off.

“I apologize for the noise and damages Princesses, I’ll remove myself to avoid any more.”

Princess Luna pursed her lips and started to take a step forward after him. But before she could move a full pace or call out to her friend, she felt a warm hoof push itself out in front of her. Princess Celestia, still holding a quietly groaning Princess Cadance, sighed and sadly shook her head. It was utter pandemonium at the moment and would take time to sort out, but she at least knew what needed to be done now.

“Leave him… As Xenilla said, he won’t hurt anyone; but he needs to be alone.”

=====================================
Somewhere deep in the Southern Swamps
=====================================

Queen Chrysalis was not happy, as rare as that occurrence was. Life had been a long, strange, often anger-inducing series of ups and downs for the changeling monarch. When she decided to first make herself known 950 years ago, life was surprisingly easy. Unlike the other “monsters” she’d bided her time, not wasting her campaign right in the middle of the alicorn diarchy like Tirek and Sombra had. With only Celestia on the throne and her forces being very mobile, Chrysalis had easy pickings for the first few months. Places like Trot and Timbucktu, once notable and cornerstone cities upon the maps, were little more than crumbling ghost towns once she moved off after having her fun. At least, it was easy pickings until Celestia finally caught up to her!

The royal changeling sneered and winced upon looking at her raised leg. Nine centuries old and she could still vividly remember the solar flare induced thrashing the enraged alicorn gave her that left the nonliving parts of her hooves lined with holes and her horn warped and crooked. After escaping imprisonment, she had to lay low for the next few centuries, acting in secret, building her hives and back-up hives, and planning. But her chance to finally get revenge on Celestia only came at the cost of meeting another damned rival. Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s little brat Chrysalis had initially used as a psychological chewtoy. The unicorn wasn’t even on her level without Chrysalis gorging herself and yet she’d still managed to have a hoof in foiling both the Canterlot invasion and her plans involving a magic boosting comet; all while also screwing up one of her new favorite fortresses with her friends; making it into a new prison. Chrysalis in the present only managed to avoid an outburst over the memories of failures by recalling the look on Twilight’s face when Chrysalis had suckered her into thinking the changeling wanted her pity and a chance to “redeem” herself. She played the young alicorn’s eagerness and ignorance like a fiddle, tricking her into opening the prison door just enough for the queen and her hidden guards to spring a trap and burst out.

That was weeks ago and the Element Bearers and the older alicorns had yet to find her and her changelings. To their credit, not like Chrysalis ever would give most anyone any, most wouldn’t think to check inside an almost invisible cave entrance in the middle of a rock pile in the middle of a heavily forested swamp and follow the tunnel down for several dozen meters until they reached a massive cavern where Chrysalis had built this hive decades ago. Structured into the limestone caves and river, the hive was a close facsimile to a fortress, with high and thick walls of black resin as hard as rock, glowing pustules of green liquid that provided a dim light, stockades, inner halls, living quarters, and tunnels with scavenged material from the surface and past conquests, and of course, a throne chamber in the back where Chrysalis was now. To call it a hive, castle, or a fortress would all be accurate, all would aptly describe the grim, darkened, and alien structure. And the queen of the installation was good at biding her time, even if this didn’t stop her from craving revenge as if her last defeat was still fresh.

She stomped across her throne chamber back and forth, having been pacing for the better part of three hours; filled with hate and filled with thoughts on how to get back at those who dared trouble her. She had been weighing between her options, some rash and playing to her desire for vengeance as soon as possible; and others being more long term plans. She could try an elaborate scheme in the years to come, either targeting Sparkle and Cadenza when they grew elderly or alone, or perhaps a personal scheme by kidnapping any offspring they had covertly and turning them into her own successor as a changeling. Chrysalis grumbled.

-Or I could just try to slip poison into their breakfast tomorrow… No, no that’s not nearly good enough!-

She sneered, swatting a spire of resin growing out of the floor and shattering it.

-They have to know it was me who did them in!-

Chrysalis scowled to herself. Revenge wasn’t something you rushed, and revenge was only fulfilling if your prey knew who it was who did them in. But even as she dwelled on the thought of rendering the alicorn species a myth yet again, a stray thought broke up her planning cycle like a thrown monkey wrench.

She had a lot of information about what was going on in Equestria proper at any given time and was constantly getting more, having spies spread out across the nation in any place they could remain undetected. Chrysalis knew of the giant monstrosities that had appeared suddenly, and at first planned to exploit their arrival. Perhaps in the chaos any ploys to take out Celestia or one of her ascended proteges might work out easier. However that was quickly quashed when news came from a now hornless scout that not only were there a good many “Kaiju” out there now; but most of them were now allied with and placed right next to most of the alicorns and Element Bearers. The scout had been going around the fringes of Ponyville, using the look of an urban legend in what the changeling queen would admit was a clever move. If anyone saw this “Slendermane” they clearly wouldn’t approach it and try to get friendly, and if the scared witnesses told anyone who knew of the myth they’d get written off as a liar for seeing fiction.

The scout had been at the apple orchards in this disguise to try and spy on the Honest Element, or maybe even nab one of those three annoying fillies tied to the Element Bearers again. That was when they unfortunately found out there was a kaiju there of all places and would have lost more than their horn if they hadn’t ducked and hid themselves. The damage wasn’t life threatening, but their days of being an infiltrator or scout were over. Can’t conjure up a disguise without a horn to channel through.

But any glimmer of concern the queen had for her changeling paled in comparison to the frustration she’d caught hold of. It just seemed like the world joyed itself in throwing more and more problems at her. For nine hundred years the only soul that could have stood up to her greatness one on one was Celestia. Now in the span of a few years, Chrysalis found herself faced with four times as many alicorns, a new batch of Element Bearers, the Crystal Heart back in action, and just when she’d thought she might have a chance at isolating a few targets during this sudden chaos, now there were six creatures that come flying in out of nowhere and park themselves exactly where she didn’t want anypony to be.

One fact became clear, this was too much for her to handle alone.

-This solo approach isn’t working anymore. If they want to stack their alliances, it’s time for a collaboration…-

As much as she hated that last thought, having not done anything resembling an alliance in over a millennia, she hated the thought of losing again even more. Queen Chrysalis trotted over to a portion of the throne room floor off into the corner. She magically gripped and slid a heavy pedestal and its trophy, the King of Timbucktu’s spear, aside. Underneath the pedestal was a long, narrow, black tunnel that was almost impossibly deep and equally hard to see down. Nevertheless, Chrysalis felt around with her magic until she caught hold of the familiar, channeling every lustful thought and memory she could to fulfill the required “code” of dark magic needed to hold, lift, and open what she was dredging up. A fool would think lust was merely a craving for someone, maybe even try to sexualize and fetishize it. But any channel for dark magic wasn’t a fetish or plaything nor something to be trifled with. Lust was far more and it was far darker than most could imagine. Lust for power, lust for pleasures, lust for revenge, lust for seeing your enemies suffer as you destroyed everything they loved. And lust to start the cycle of torture all over again. That is what Chrysalis only thought of, both for what she had done and planned to do again. And it drew out the umbra tome like a magnet.

Setting the incredibly heavy book on the floor with a resonating boom echoing through the air and floor, Chrysalis caught her breath and blew the sea of dust off the over millennia-old writing. The umbra tome was an abomination to the eyes of most beings, looking evil to the eye in almost every regard and it’s writing equally heinous to read and beyond unpleasant to the ear. Considering the contents, the reaction most would have is understandable. All the books in the Canterlot library about dark magic were by second hoof of second hoof sources, written by or from the knowledge of some rookie warlocks who got too caught up in bad thoughts and “discovered” a new type of magic. They were literally sparks of dark magic spun off in parts unknown. The book that lay before Chrysalis, one of four of its kind, were the original inferno. Dark magic straight from the source.

She hadn’t opened this thing in decades but the writing was still completely intact and the pages unworn. Lighting up her horn and coating the previously illegible text with her magic’s glow, she unscrambled the wording and read through familiar writing. Chrysalis almost robotically recited the opening mantra, bowing her head to the text before reading on. To her dislike, the section on promising coventures was very lacking. The text having changed in real time, it was a short list.

Discord’s gluttony had simmered off by a large degree ever since he decided to play the traitor card in the truest way and change sides. There was still plenty of overconsumption present but he was too close to Chrysalis’ enemies for her to even consider a team-up. Little lost there, she never did think much of that moron. The original centaur warlock, Sendak, was ancient even when Chrysalis knew him; though his magic, tome, and greed had transferred well to his student Lord Tirek. Tirek could have made for a good co-schemer, having a good wit and plenty of strength to back it up. Chrysalis knew the younger centaur demon better than his predecessor anyways, but the problem was the tome couldn’t get a clear fix on where exactly Tirek was. Either he was still in Tartarus or so drastically weakened to the point it couldn’t find him. In either case, useless to her.

Chrysalis felt her lips curl back over her fangs, licking at them with her forked tongue when she saw the next page. King Sombra would have been perfect. Filled with wrath that’d be easy to point in a favorable direction, plenty powerful, and the only soul Chrysalis knew with enough preparations and back-up ideas to rival her own. And if she could keep his lid on to the point he stopped being so obvious, very lethal. The only problem was something that caused Chrysalis to raise an eyebrow in confusion. According to the tome, Sombra was both dead and alive at the same time. It kept flip-flopping between the two, like it couldn’t make up its own mind. Chrysalis grumbled, about to give the book a good whack to see if that would get its 1,100 year old mind running properly; but she stopped immediately upon feeling a biting cold rip through the air.

The normal air within the cavern hive was constant, an even mix of warm, humid swamp air with the cold dryness of the subterrain airflows; making the temperature and humidity an unfailing temperate. So when a chill strong enough that Chrysalis felt it bite right through her exoskeleton instantly coursed into her, the shift in focus was as instinctual in reaction as it was her mind telling her something was very wrong. She snapped around, hair and tail flailing in strands before she locked her gaze upon a dark, swirling mass of purples and blacks so dark and unreflective it seemed to swallow up nearby light and looked like holes in space more than they did a color. Multiple forms emerged from the portal, quickly filling the room as one after another piled in. Each of their number was initially nothing more than a glowing outline, its shape composed of a mass of spines, sword-like insectoid legs, a pair of small eyes on either side and an unpaired fifth eye at the central ending tip of what one could best describe as it’s “head”. As the lights faded from the shape it revealed a roughly bear sized insectoid of some variety Chrysalis had never seen before. It was chiefly black in color with a yellowish trim on the edges of its individual exoskeleton plates, with bloody amber coloring the iris portions of its almost disturbingly uninsectoid eyes; which looked closer to a pony or mammals’ than the compound lenses most arthropods had. The body layout was mostly bug-like only by merit of having an exoskeleton and six pointed legs, with the leg arrangement all being focused on the bottom of the back segment and the rest of the segments pointing forward in something of a telescoping, bending neck. Numerous horns and spines lined the body, chiefly on the dorsal plane going down the middle of the back, with a set of stag beetle-like mandibles and a dorsal horn pointing forward out from the head forming a three-pronged pincer in front of it’s “face”. Know of it she didn’t, but Chrysalis was looking at another insect queen’s soldiers as her own personal guard charged into the chamber to face off against the symbiotic legion soldier as more of its kind popped into existence alongside it. With no great innate power for the realm to strip away like foreign bodies, they were able to maintain their natural state without any change to an Equestrian form; at least not for a long while that was far to come. The portal closed off behind the invaders with the throne chamber cut in two with ten legion troops on one side and ten of Chrysalis’ praetorian guard flanking their queen on the other.

But even as the spiny beasts chittered and hissed to one another while snapping their pincers or sword-like legs at the changeling praetorian’s spears, Chrysalis’ mind trailed to another observation. While she didn’t know the species, she knew soldier insects when she saw them.

-Soldiers, so where’s their leader?-

With that in mind she wasn’t very surprised by the massive flash of light streaming through the windows leading to the outside cavern. In the space before the fortress a second portal to Zenith burst open, hundreds of times larger than the first. With none of Harmony’s magic or any good magic here to dampen or interfere with Bagan’s influence, there was nothing to stop a whole kaiju from being summoned right at Chrysalis’ doorstep as opposed to kilometers away. The portal magnitudes larger than the throne room gate soon begot a similarly gargantuan form, even by kaiju standards. 168 meters tall at the top of the spine erupting from the back, the mass was about to stomp down on the floor below when a mix of the realm’s own traits reacting to her powers and Bagan’s own will caused the glowing form to rapidly shrink. Rows of extra limbs folded back and stretched into wings, pincers flattening into hooves, and a tail extended out from a new backbone once the endoskeleton grew within milliseconds.

Flying as fast as it was shrinking, the newcomer charged the fortress and crashed through one of the windows. The final intruder skillfully settled onto the floor among a shower of shattered resin as the glow receded from her now revealed form. Originally having the newcomer facing away from herself, Chrysalis felt her cold heart stop briefly upon seeing something she’d never seen before turn around and face her, another royal changeling. Similar in form to Chrysalis, in the dark echo of a mature alicorn, the queen was very large and taller than herself. Pale as bone or ivory with a black trim and red patch on her chest, the changeling’s oddest trait was a seam going up her long, straight horn that made it look like it was split or could split in two. Chrysalis stole back her resolute stance and stood up against the invader as the latter looked upon her with icy blue eyes.

Her forces were many, for she was Legion.

“I presume you are the one known as Queen Chrysalis?”

Legion asked in a cold tone. Chrysalis fully regained her nerve but was still surprised to see someone so much like herself, especially from her earlier decades, undamaged and unscarred.

“I am she. And you are Queeeen...?”

“I am Legion.”

“Well, Queen Legion-”

Chrysalis muttered, keeping a calm tone while stepping closer to the intruder.

“-before I give the command to turn this throne room into a brawl house; I’m going to need to ask… HOW DID YOU GET IN MY HIVE!?!”

Chrysalis snapped, hissing at that last part while lunging towards Legion. One could practically see the venom spitting out from between her teeth as her magical charge painted the front of the pale changeling queen’s body green. Legion’s eyes flashed with light and she made multiple high pitched clicking sounds that seemed to be aimed at her soldiers that looked poised to pounce the moment Chrysalis approached their matriarch. Whatever Legion “said” to them got the beasts to back off, even as a blue glow started to gush out of the seam on Legion’s horn to match Chrysalis’. With both royal changelings in what amounted to a Mexican Stand-Off, the tension in the room threatened to snap at any moment. As such, Legion spoke softly.

“From one queen to another, I know how important the sanctity of a hive is. Good world here for a good hive, a good conquest. However I come here for another and not to lay a claim.”

“Another? So you follow orders? Some queen you are.”

Chrysalis grunted with a scoff. Legion was unmoved.

“Two and a dozen solar cycles ago I’d agree with you, but times can change. My rule is unchallenged, just adapted. Even a queen can have a god.”

“So what does this ‘god’ of yours want? And you best hope it’s enough to somehow convince me not to do what I’m tempted to do to all trespassers…”

Legion tilted her head and clicked to a subordinate. The soldier chittered before rustling its limbs and bringing up a dark chunk of obsidian roughly the size of a volleyball. Before Chrysalis could try and wonder what was so important about volcanic glass, the soldier legion did something just plain bizarre. It held out the obsidian in front of its “face” with its pincers and seemed to instantly vaporize and suck in the glass like it was breathing it in. Teaming up with Bagan had given the Legion numerous perks. Powerful allies, a stable base to make a central hive, portals to other worlds once their service was done, and all the glass they could eat. Silicon based lifeforms tend to have unorthodox dietary schemes. In a matter of days the queen’s brood had grown from a few dozen to hundreds, this force just being the tip of the iceberg.

However as confused as she was at just what in the world the soldier legion did, it was what it held now that the obsidian was gone that gave her pause. When it passed the object to its queen and Legion held it out with her hoof, Chrysalis recognized it in full and stopped cold. It was a gray-black, curved cone with a burnt red tip. Despite how dark her form was, Chrysalis went pale.

-Sombra’s horn!-

Wide eyed, her voice was half hushed in stupor.

“... Where did you get this?!”

Legion continued on like she hadn’t heard her.

“My god isn’t one for questions to itself, but has plenty for others. We’re new to this world and it wishes to know more. And, it’s a benevolent deity to those whom aid it…”

“And.. am I to guess it has some questions for me?”

“Your hive probably wouldn’t be standing if it didn’t.”

“..... Well then,-”

Chrysalis sucked in her breath to try and quell her nerves some, even if looking at Sombra’s horn was causing her plenty of unease.

“-call me an atheist until times yet to come; but you’ve gotten my attention. Do you know what perk I may get for my little patronage?”

Fortunately, Legion had the exact context to say what was needed. It and the fact her species would become a changeling given her location and biology were the exact reasons Bagan had sent her, knowing Chrysalis would need the likewise to agree to what it wanted her to agree to.

“All queens have enemies, rivals. Given your age my god is probably right in guessing you have quite a few. Would you like them, removed? What does the queen of the changeling hive wish for?”

Queen Chrysalis’ face contorted, but not in anger. It’s muscles condensed and twitched, forming a vile, hate filled facsimile of a smile that was drowning in maleficent thoughts and lusts. One could practically see the flames spurting out from her lit eyes.

“My lord already brought your colleague Sombra back, and can easily do it again. And I have seen its power beyond that, it can do far more. We all have our wishes, so why not see them through with appropriate aid from beyond?... So, I’ll ask again. What is your wish?”

Chrysalis needed not much thought to the question, her expression bore all the answer. She turned away from Legion and raised her hoof. Her eyes slithered their gaze across every solar flare burned hole in her beautiful form as well as the subtle blemishes upon her torso from magic blasts, meshed with the memory of the pulse of magic that spoiled her greatest invasion ploy ever. She was filled with hatred, and filled with lust for retribution.

“Your liege, how powerful are they? Could they really get what I want done?”

Legion’s response was slightly quieter. In truth as great as she found the perks of her new loyalties, still a recent concept to her, it would be a lie to say in some way the intense cold she felt near her master’s presence and the immense power they displayed just by shouting at them didn’t affect her. Even a world-traveling, conquering alien queen could get scared. She wouldn’t have agreed with its self definition as a “god” if she could find any other way to describe it.

“It’s the most powerful being I’ve ever encountered, probably impossibly so… Give it a favor, and it’ll give you any favor.”

Chrysalis paused for a moment. She turned around halfway, a sly grin on her fanged face.

“Rid this world of alicorns, and I’ll kiss your liege’s hooves myself!... So! What questions does our patron have for my little self?”

She quipped, putting a hoof to her chest while speaking with fake humbleness. From Chrysalis, that was about as genuine as it got. Not knowing this but similarly not caring, Legion scratched another goal off her mental checklist and went to the next.

“It’s aware that all “good” magic used by the alicorns, ponies, other races, and their artifacts seem to all come from the same original source. A “teacher of teachers”, a nexus of that type of magic in both a literal and metaphorical case.”

Chrysalis narrowed an eye and raised a brow. She’d already figured out she was talking to a transformed kaiju, albeit one on a different side than that the big lizard one in Canterlot, based off her soldier’s alien appearance and word of “not being here for awhile”. That itself wasn’t the surprise, what was the surprise was the fact this Legion seemed to be implying her similarly alien master was aware of an ancient secret Chrysalis only learned about from someone even older than herself.

-They know about the Tree of Harmony?!-

Chrysalis conscious thoughts shifted back into real time as Legion continued on.

“But, not the kind of magic used by King Sombra, yourself, Lord Tirek, and the one called Discord. And as my master was looking into these, they couldn’t help but notice all of you four were the earliest cases and you all appeared within a few solar orbits or cycles of each other about one thousand orbits ago. An oddity.”

Chrysalis listened and remembered well. There was a reason so many of Equestria’s calamities struck it and its neighbors one thousand years ago, after the Windigos were banished. After all, she was there, just laying low for a few years once the plan went south and Tirek was imprisoned and Sombra sealed away. She’d made her return once she learned one alicorn attempted to kill the other and was banished, figuring the possibly weakened and grieving Celestia wouldn’t be able to come after her until the changeling horde’s strength had grown too great. Then she hoped to free Tirek and Sombra. A hope she unfortunately discovered to be naught after the razing of Trot. So for nine hundred years she hid, planned, and waited. There was a reason her magic was more akin to her old allies than it was to the Equestrians. Legion finished her thought, turning to face the tome Chrysalis had pulled out and seeing the illustrations of a demonic centaur, mutated unicorn, and changeling queen all standing before something.

“I know little of magic, but the same can’t be said for my patron. So it wishes to know… If your magic came from a different source, who taught you?”

Queen Chrysalis held up King Sombra’s horn before her, practically able to feel the very familiar magic radiating off it. It was so much like her own. After all, lust and wrath were close relatives. Her mind trailed to wonder and ponder. This was something she swore to secrecy, but the opportunity was clear as crystal and good as gold. She looked at Sombra’s horn, imagining the unicorn standing alongside her with Tirek and even Discord before she banished the traitor from her mind.

-Her master definitely seems powerful. Strong enough to end the alicorns!... And… maybe strong enough to enact our old plan and bring “him” back... They’d fight soon as that happened though…-
She felt a grin cross her muzzle.

-But if back to full strength, who could oppose him? Legion, come a year and you’ll be bending the knee to another master!-

Chrysalis approached Legion with a snicker, gripping the page she saw Legion looking at and turning it. The illustrations of the terrors of the past took a more distant point of view, showing the four, TIrek now replacing the aged Sendak, standing before a dark visage of a vague form. Simple in design, and yet somehow with the image radiating a dark and grim magic from the pages themselves, terrifying at the same time. Legion only felt that same way when Bagan addressed her. Recurved horns, deep red eyes, a studded collar with eerie, glowing gems, and cloven hooves were some of the only traits plainly visible on the almost moving picture. Chrysalis stole her breath before looking fully at the image of her mentor. After all, even queens can have tutors.

“Does your master know of a place below a lot of crystals called Tambelon?"

Author's Note:

Proofread by Lance-Omikron and Faith-Wolff (IRL this time!)
Artwork to come by Faith-Wolff

Blade Dancer created by Fiddlesticks
Blueberry Frost owned and copyrighted by Sword-of-Akasha and licensed by Shadows of Shattered Dreams, all rights reserved

Next Time on The Bridge!:
An unexpected visit and the history of dark magic

Comments

[Prince_Staghorn]

I knew that if this happened it would either be Legion or Megaguirus who showed up

[Titan64]

Poor Xenilla, like dang. I honestly feel bad for him, the fact that he tries to tell his brother that he attacked to help them protect their home and save his life, his only family still hates him.

[VampDash]

..... NO. OH MY GOD NO. CHRYSSIE IT'S TOO DANGEROUS! TAMBELON?! ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!

Edit: Also I have conflicting feelings on Xenilla's actions...... dammit Xen.

[The Avenger]

Let me guess. The Equestrian version of Bagan is gonna have a role either here or in the sequel. Also, since Chrysalis, Sombra, Tirek and Discord apparently represent lust, wrath, greed and gluttony, does that mean they will be either canon or OC villains who will represent the sins of sloth, envy and pride?

[Sentinel053]

Sweetness that was good and yay play time with Chryssie :p

[Krovgor Warhawk]

And that is what happens when you lie for twenty years.

[kahnac]

Took a while, but definitely worth the wait. Though it is a bit sad to see the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree when it comes to Jr. Guess even he can succumb to that furious rage i hate so much in a gojiran. I only hope he gets over that mood he's in, and maybe has Lea knock some sense into him. Otherwise i'll come into the story myself, and punch him square in the nose!

But anyway, here's what i REALLY like about this chapter: the possibility that the four villains brought up in the end of the story might've been in an alliance of sorts, but kinda broke away when the alicorns appeared. However, i am SO MUCH more eager to see how you have plans to bring Grogar into this story. Though i have a feeling his circumstances might be more similar to Bagan that i think.

But one more thing: did i perhaps see references to alchemy in this chapter?

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Damn... Poor Xen....

[Metroid Prime]

Awwww.....No one died :3

[Moongaze14]

Okay, this chapter was downright epic while still emotionally heavy, so it was well worth the wait. Lea and Xenilla's interaction was entertaining and it seems they'll interact further due to Xenilla having remnants of Lea's mom on his body. The description of Xenilla's mental landscape and how it compares to an ocean filled with guilt was very well written (I also liked how Lea compared Junior, Rodan, and Anguirus mind landscapes to a turbulent sea, a sky, and a canyon respectively [kinda reminds me of Kingdom Hearts with Kairi, Sora, and Riku]). Junior going nuclear and beating Xenilla up was amazing yet terrifying, especially as he goes feral (reminds me of Jon Snow on Game of Thrones during the Battle of the Bastards). The nuclear Godzilla is also quite the badass as he was capable of withstanding the combined blast of three Alicorns while normal Junior could handle only Luna. It was also heartbreaking to see Junior rebuke Xenilla's attempts to apologize and feeling horrible for nearly hurting innocents in his attempts to kill Xenilla. Blade Dancer's great sadness both by Xen's condition and how wrong her advice to patch things up with Junior was hard to watch and Luna's concern for Junior's mental state was saddening. On the other hand, it was interesting to learn that all the bad guys from the first four seasons were actually mentored by Grogar and that he's, in Chrysalis' opinion, supposedly badass enough to handle Bagan. I also liked how each antagonist is linked to one of the seven sins with Chrysalis representing lust in the sense of desire for power while Discord, Sombra, and Tirek represent gluttony, wrath, and greed. Legion becoming a changeling was a surprise twist and convincing Chrysalis into joining Bagan made things interesting. Pretty much this chapter was well worth the wait.
P.S: I read that Faith finally managed to go to your home. I'm happy for the both of you. Hope both of you have a great time while she's visiting you.

[ghast25gaming]

featured on 7/17/2016 btw

[Corona Blaze]

Xen needs a shoulder to cry on[I think Blade's up for that], Junior needs to chill the hell out[he's right to be pissed but even then, seriously man you damn near f**k'd up] Also, the most important part.

GROGAR THE NECROMANCER RETURNS!!!! Holy S**T it's like you're bringing in ALL of the obscure, rarely seen bits o lore from both franchises!

[ArchimediesMD]

So according to google tambelon is city from generation one.....this should be interesting

also is there going to be any atwork for Legion

[chrisharte97]

Awesome chapter as always.

[Black_Knight]

Nice to see an update.

Xen was really unlucky with the misunderstanding. Junior isn't Godzilla's son for nothing, but asking him to reconsider something he was adamant for almost all is life sure wasn't going to be accepted swiftly, especially when it driven by hate.

Chrysalis finally shows up. I see you are using the comics as her backstory. Honestly I don't really like them, especially the one describing the changeling origin.

Bagan has sent Legion as an emissary for an alliance and have explanation on the Equestrian villains brand of magic. And oh boy, Grogar the Necromancer, the Lord of Tambelon might come into the fray.

Also that quartet of sins remind me of this.

[Mechagodzilla3]

Junior needs to calm down.

[SuperSaiyanGodzilla]

As godly and evil Grogar is, he is nothing compared to Bagan once he returns to full power

[jacen]

So, to update the scoreboard...
Xenilla is not evil, but feels guilt over all he has done.
Mothra knows Xenilla is not evil, but has just watched the greatest horror her ancestors ever faced, 400 times over thanks to Xenilla.
Mal and Lora know Xenilla is not evil, and are willing to spread the word.
Godzilla wants to rip Xenilla's spinal column out by way of his navel and strangle Xenilla with it... nothing new there.
And Bagon is about to learn about Sombra's teacher by way of fellow student Chrysalis. Well, the good guys are fed.

Nice beat down scene, and fantastic flashback.

I await Grogar's tale in the next chapter.

[Ultimate Warrior of Zera]

Wow, Junior suffered Meltdown, and reversed it? Awesome.

Everything about Legion just screams badass.

[CopperFan16]

why godzilla doesn't hate destoroyah more thought? she was the closest to kill senior, right?

[Oldtakufanboy]

Worth the wait. I was about to lose my marbles on waiting, but it was worth it.

It's awesome to see Chrysalis now involved, this got a whole lot interesting

[SomeRandomMinion]

G-Grogar?
GROGAR'S IN THIS TOO?!

[Evowizard25]

and the only soul Chrysalis knew with enough preparations and back-up ideas to rival her own.

You think you're a strategist, Chryaslis? That's so cute~ I want to pick her up and cuddle her for aspiring to be as good as Sombra one day. Also, bad move on the villains part here recruiting her. Chrysalis is basically the Starscream of MLP. She thinks she's cunning, but her plans tend to fail given her self overconfidence and lust for power. I give it three weeks before she stabs them in the back and/or messes something up and gets booted.

"THAT'S IT! I'll start my own villain club and I will be the god!"

"A god, my queen?"

"I'm immortal and the mother of all changelings. I AM YOUR GOD! KNEEL AND PRAY OR I"LL CUT OFF YOUR HORN!"

Also, poor Xenilia. Blade Dancer will take care of you and kiss away your boo boos.

But seriously, that was intense in every sense of the word. This fight and realization was meant to come and it came hard.... Fudge, my mind went to Xenilia and Blade Dancer and I can't help the innuendo. Anyways, it was written exceptionally well, per usual and I can't wait to see how Junior deals with this knowledge. Probably bull-headedly, but that's why he has his waifu {Luna} and Mothra to help. Or Celestia, that'd be nice since she could give him some pep talk on how not all 'evil' deeds are done for... evil... THat sounded better in my head.

Anyways, brilliant as always, Tarb.

[kgk26]

Holy crap. Godzilla's hate and unrelenting rage seemed so tangible, so powerful that it was literally destroying the environment around him..just from his mere presence.

It reminds me of Dragon ball Z, when the ground beneath a charter would shatter just from their auras. Yikes.

And being able to shrug off the powers of three alicorns was insane. Especially considering when he first arrived, he could only fight Luna to a standstill.

All that rage, all that hate... are we certain that Junior is not Kharn the Betrayer reincarnated?

[ben24]

Well in case Junior and Xenilla's problems, forgivenes is never achive from night to the morning; in other part chrysalis finally appears very good, and she is a fool if she thinks that Grogar is even a challenge for Bagan is probably that he is going dry him of his power and soul. Finally in other things hhhhhhaaaaaaaahhhhh Godzilla Junior and his angers problems no matter he will made it (i am sorry i still not like the shiping GodzillaxLuna, hhhaaaahh still hoping for GodzillaxBlade i am so sorry for bein so annoying). Thank you for the new chapter.

[Mecha Guardian-B312]

Xenilla since day one,

[Krovgor Warhawk]

7401616 Pretty much.

[jacen]

7400893
Destroyah was just another Kaiju Senior faced and fought. She didn't actively hunt him down. She didn't use Junior as bait. Heck, she didn't even start the fight; Junior did. In short, fighting Destroyah was business as usual.

Xenilla went to their home, used Junior as bait, and set a trap with the express purpose of assassinating Senior.

In short, Xenilla made it personal.

Big. Difference.

[Adamastos]

By the pits of Hades! Grogar?! Now that's some old school evil. Should prove most entertaining. Entertaining indeed.

[Tarbtano]

7401692
7400893

I'd say specifics but Jacen (thanks buddy) covered 90% of it. Another to add is that while Destroyah, while very dangerous and almost successful, never made the matters personal for Junior. Xenilla was the one who broke Junior's childhood innocence as life was never the same after him. He also causes a much more personal level of discomfort for Junior by insisting their familial connection and being a driving force behind Junior's life being so violent for the last twenty years. Destroyah by comparison is a nightmare of days past yes, but more a singular, dangerous force that doesn't lead kaiju in a manner similar to Junior. With Xenilla, it's personal because he is family on some level, no matter how much Junior denies it, and because Junior sees Xenilla as his evil counterpart and the linchpin behind the chaos on Terra.

[SweetCaptain77]

I am SO looking forward to next time.

[Krovgor Warhawk]

Sorry for making multiple comments, it's just that their is a lot for me to digest and it takes time for me to properly convey my opinion on something like this.

Anyway, it surprises me how many people feel bad for Xenilla when this is what he has been sowing for himself for over twenty years. First theirs his vision of a monster that he assumed to be his father. Instead of rising above his baser instincts and analyzing the situation, he chose to recklessly attack his father and use Jr. as bait to draw him out into a trap which undoubtedly killed hundreds, if not thousands of humans in the process. Then theirs the fact that he has been manipulating the war on Terra and honestly, it makes me feel bad for the mutations. With Xenilla leading them, they might have been able to change in a way that could have coexisted with the Guardians, instead he plays with their lives like some sick puppet master. I feel that if Destroyah could change, so could the mutants, but we'll never know because of Xenilla's arrogance.

let's also not forget that it wasn't just Big G that got hurt, there were the other kaiju like Lea and Anguirus who had fought for over twenty years against monster under Xenilla's lead. It also makes me wonder how many humans died as a result of these battles, and if Xenilla even cares, because the more I think about it, the more I think Xenilla is selfish, he claims that he cares about his brother, but he hasn't shown any remorse for he hurt or killed, both intended and unintended. He would have let Cadence die if it meant he would achieving his goal.

Now, I' not saying that he's beyond redemption, indeed with Blade Dancer helping him eat his full helping of humble pie, he's slowly starting to change for the better, but he has a lot to atone for, because Jr. the Guardians, all of Terra, have suffered pain due to his actions. Though he did these deeds with the best of intentions, it doesn't change the fact that many were hurt by his deeds. Perhaps if he had been the brother and son he could have been, many lives could have been spared, and he would have not only a brother to love him, but a father as well. We may never know. All he can do now, is make amends for his sins.

Alright, haters do your f***ing worst, I sure as hell did mine.

[Moongaze14]

Forgot to ask this question. Is Xenilla himself capable of entering meltdown? Can any of the Mirror selves enter meltdown? Also, how powerful would a meltdown Xenilla or Godzilla in ponified form would be against an Alicorn because Junior managed to withstand an attack from three Alicorns (Celestia, Luna, and Cadance) and the first two were operating at full strength due to being close to each other, so Grendell (that's you Tarb) knows how meltdown Junior would have fare in one on one combat against any of them.

[Kingofthecouch]

damn this is freaking awesome as hell, i can't find much fault in this chapter at all

[Dustchu]

WHoo! What a chapter! :D

And I have like... six new chapters to another story, with lengths that rival this chapters by a mile...
Lord save me.

Nice job man!

[Tarbtano]

7401934

Probably roughly a x2 multiplier in comparison to meltdown vs. non-meltdown form, but the number would be constantly jumping higher and lower given the states chaotic nature and this is just an average. Meltdown!Junior could withstand a blast from all three alicorns, but he isn't equal to the three put together. He didn't fight three alicorns off as much as he withstood a single, big blast from the three of them that wasn't continuous as they weren't trying to seriously hurt him.

Vs. Cadance - Meltdown!Junior hands down, though she could hang in there for a bit
Vs. Luna - Meltdown!Junior wins again, though Luna could last longer than Cadance
vs. Celestia - Meltdown!Junior wins, but Celestia could possibly last long enough for the meltdown to adversely affect Junior
Vs. Proxy-Boosted!Luna - Meltdown!Junior still wins, but not decisively in a quick manner. If M!Jr is a 100, peak form Luna is an 80
Vs. Proxy-Boosted!Celestia - Toss up. These two are on roughly equal form (and ironically both on fire given Tia in the comics can ignite her mane). Junior may have more pure destructive force, but Celestia's magic has a lot more utility. If Junior won, he's blow up soon after.
* Proxy Boosted Nightmare Moon would have similar odd to boosted Celestia given NMM is a corrupted visage of an older Luna.

And I will note Junior was only briefly in a partial meltdown state. He can't actively control it at full throttle. If he entered it completely to the extent his father did, he will die.

And yes, all true Godzillas (so any version of the 1954 individual, Senior, Junior, and Xenilla) can theoretically enter the Meltdown state. The state is directly tied to nature of their powers and is the same for all of them.

[Smjames]

7401883 I heartily agree with what you said, with this added caveat: How do you think the humans are gonna feel when they find out that Xen has been using them as expendable pawns in a chess game only he knew he was playing? How will they react knowing that thousands of humans died just so that Xen could make things better for those he deemed appropriate? If Xen ever makes it back to Terra, he better start watching his back, cause people are not gonna be too happy with him.

[Hunter101]

good get your act together really Fing fast because evil is going to win!

good chapter by the way!

seem's luna is interested in jr lets see how this plays out.

also jr please at least forgive your brother soon.

[Krovgor Warhawk]

7402232 The hole that Xenilla has dug for himself just keeps getting deeper. Humans are not as forgiving as Ponies.

Also, it's probably good that Gamera did not come through the Bridge like his fellows, because I doubt he would restrain himself after hearing that Xenilla toyed with the humans he fought so hard to protect, especially the children.

[Hunter101]

7402292 maybe am wrong but he wanted to protect earth and the humans he only used the monster's as pawns. i think he will be forgiven but yeah not everyone's going to be happy. as for me his crimes are really bad but i forgive him. especially since humans have done worse and other monsters that wanted humanity dead(namely godzilla sr) and been forgiven i don't think he shouldn't be forgiven.

the word forgiven was used 4 times in this comment.

[Saurian96]

I just realize that when Blade Dancer told them Xen's scheme, The Gojira Bros are gonna need someone to speak to after they have cooled down(or heal up in Xen's Case.) good thing they each had 2 available companions, Godzilla has Princess Luna and Anguirus (with Lea unconscious for who knows how long and Rodan in another story, Anguirus seems the next best choice to help out emotionally.) and Xen has Blade Dancer and Destroyah (Des and Ang are gonna arrive in Canterlot in the same day yes?)

also I love how The Kaiju's Mind are compared to different landscapes like:
Rodan- Clear skies with some storm clouds though quite uncommon
Anguirus- Canyon with sometimes flooded River
Godzilla-Rough Seas and occasional storm surges
Xenilla-Dark Ocean and heavy rain

And now we're introduce to another Evil Power-house. Grogar.
If Chrysalis is Right about Grogar battling it down with Bagan, We're gonna have an Epic Triple Threat Match ounce Harmony steps out that Tree.

So is Changeling!Legion is Bigger than Pegasus!Destroyah?

[Krovgor Warhawk]

7402326 From what I understand, the only things he "cares" about are his brother, Blade Dancer, and the planet Tera, not necessarily the humans that lived their. It's like what the Shobijin said, he's careless and smug. The fact that Xenilla still can't quite grasp the full weight of his sins, neither can Blade Dancer for that matter, is something that needs to be addressed. I honestly hope he doesn't get off scot free when Lea recovers and the rest of the Kaiju join up.

[Tarbtano]

7401883
7402232

To be abrupt and answer a worry, no, Xen ain't getting away scotch free (why else do you think I titled the chapter "Sins"? ). I'm not that lazy. However, do consider one thing. While his plans did result in some human fatalities, do bear in mind the situation. Many of the Mutations are malevolent monstrosities that would have rampaged endlessly if not given direction. Some of the Defenders, lacking "training" and Xenilla to call some of the Mutations off on some occasions, probably would have been killed. Thousands to millions more humans would have died. And what Xenilla did wasn't just hold back most of the Mutations, but the ones he set loose were always near a Defender or group of Defenders so any rampage would be stopped pretty quickly. You want carnage? Imagine multiple Mutations randomly attacking New York City with only one or no Defender kaiju present. And in the years before the Mecha returns, the GDF would be able to do squat to stop them. Xen is careless, smug, and didn't value human life, but that something he never allowed to happen. It was a bad situation, but it could have been a whole lot worse.

And I fear you also misunderstand the cause behind Destroyah's lightening. One of the reasons it happened was because the cause behind her destructiveness was she didn't know anything else to do. She'd never experienced kinda emotions before and thus had her destructive side set as the default. Most of the Mutations however are destructive or malefic by choice. Megaguirus was basically Terran!Chrysalis, Gaira turned down an offer to turn good and has an ego taller than Legion, etc. And Destroyah's turn around was spurred by being stuck in a place that treated her unfailingly kind (and teaching her that emotional experience as well) and she wasn't able to act how she normally act. Recall that before Xenilla gave her the control surge crystal, she was about to eat the CMC and would have gone on a bloody rampage if she wasn't restrained in some way. For any other Mutations to turn, which is possible just very unlikely, they'd require a similar situation which is just not obtainable on Terra where they had little incentive to change.

[Tarbtano]

7402335

(Des and Ang are gonna arrive in Canterlot in the same day yes?)

Later in same day, yes.

So is Changeling!Legion is Bigger than Pegasus!Destroyah?

Given both of them are some of the tallest kaiju that aren't cheating (Grand King Ghidorah's long necks), I can say they are probably both quite huge. For comparison though, I would say yes Legion is slightly taller than Destroyah in their Equestrian forms, but Des probably weighs a bit more.

[Tarbtano]

7401712
Strap in kids, we're about to do villains like it's 1986!

7401276
Well, felt like giving a remind that while he is "Junior", he's still a "Godzilla". Senior had stuff blowing up around him too when his powers flew out of control.

7401248
To Chrysalis' credit, she was the only one of the four main villains to regularly escape imprisonment in a timely manner, tricked the heroes good as the others, and had enough cunning to lay low and act in secret for over nine centuries. And yes, I am using a lot of comics Chrysalis here. So she's actually pretty cunning. Doesn't have as many back-ups and multi-layered planning as Sombra (that's her ego talking), but not dumb.

7401239
Ja

7400889
Good to see Legion left a good impression as she tries to get Chrysalis to join the Church of Baganology
And partial-meltdown but point stands. Now you see why he emphasized control so much.

[Evowizard25]

7402883 Well the first two points are more to our heroes.... lack of thought and naivity. Then to Chrysalis' own intellect. Never said she was 'dumb', more so she sucks at long term plans because she's more of a 'think of the end goal and make up everything as you go along' sort of fellow with a god complex... It's, I dunno, I can't help but feel the narrative stories often bonk our heroes over the head to let Chrysalis get close to victory.... though she always screws herself up in the end. Yeah, Starscream.

Not that I'm saying I don't enjoy villains like this. Invader Zim and a few others come to mind. {Though I still despise her in A Canterlot Wedding.... Well I despise the episode overall.} But I genuinely like the comic adaptation.

[jacen]

Being the sort to realize things and gain perspective after "sleeping on it", I would make the following observation:

One thing the "brothers" have in common with much of humanity is the capacity to make bad decisions and take aggressive actions based on bad information.

Give Xenilla a blurry vision of a vaguely Godzilla like figure whipping out life? It must be a prophetic vision that can only be averted by killing his own father.

Have Junior walk into a room where his closest friend is on the ground and his most hated foe is standing over her? Nearly commit suicide in a way that will kill everyone for miles around as a side effect of killing his most hated brother; remember, when Senior had his meltdown, intervention with a freezing ray was needed to avoid an earth-killing explosion. While I doubt his smaller form could match even the theoretical upper yield of the Tzar Bomb, or even the Castle Bravo test, even Little Boy going off that close to Canterlot would have killed thousands.

Just an observation.

[Krovgor Warhawk]

7402853 I see your point and I understand the reasoning. However, despite his intentions and trying to prevent further loss of life, lives were still lost due to him. He played with the lives of humans and Kaiju like they were toys, pawns on a chessboard. It's like when America bombed Japan in WWII, the reasoning was that it would end the war and prevent the need to use firebomb runs which could have resulted in more people dying. But regardless of any of that, lives were still lost in a great number. I just don't want any to be glossed over when they finally do have their meeting.

I also find it ironic that when Blade Dancer said that Xenilla was trying to prevent what happened to Senior happened to Junior, it almost happened anyway because of what Xenilla has done. Of course Xenilla probably realizes that now so hopefully he will start to understand to the full weight of the situation and actually care about some thing other then his own goals and those he deems fit to live.

Speaking of playing with lives, theirs still the matter of Destroyah's control crystal was removed. If that is ever brought up, it makes me wonder how Destroyah will feel about being manipulated. Then again she probably won't care too much but I don't think the CMC will be of the same opinion and it won't reflect well in light of recent revelations.

And to end this tangent on a hopefully lighter note, Hope you and Faith enjoy your "quality" time together. *raises eyebrows twice while grinning* Not that I want to put ideas or picture in your head.

Edit: I'm sorry I just thought of this and I had to get this off my chest. During the times when Xenilla let his mutant lose on Humans, did he ever consider Azuza as being a potential casualty? Or was she just another human that Xenilla couldn't really care much about. Xenilla better pray that Junior doesn't come to this realization because if it's true, then Xenilla risked killing Junior's other parent and that is inexcusable.

[CopperFan16]

7401741 but from what i have seen in the movie she/it/he was as sadistic as gigan, just sayin.