The Bridge: A Godzilla-MLP Crossover

by Tarbtano

Chapter 54 Part 4: War's End

Gigan saw the blast of magic that struck Eurus in the face and managed to cause meaningful damage. The fact that he and his two compatriots also had to frantically dodge blasts of wind that shredded through the pavement and left him not wishing to see what would happen if one of them hit Adagio or Gloriosa, left the cyborg with a conclusion.

This fiasco had gone on long enough and it was about to get a lot worse the longer that big monstrosity was still alive. There was only one thing that would be able to put that colossus down, and it was currently around the neck of their other problem.

Though the portals had been taken away initially, there was nothing stopping Zephyrus from just generating new ones. And they had been doing so with wild abandon, still relying on mostly dodging instead of actually attacking anymore given that the few times they had, Adagio and Gaea alone had been more than enough to fend them off at this point.

Gigan teleported in a blink of red light to grab onto the siren in question and pull her to safety after a portal had been opened up underneath her, the cyborg warping the two back to stable ground as Gaea forced Frostbite Sparkle away.

“Thanks for the save,” Adagio panted as she flinched at another gigantic barrage of beams flew over her head. Irys and Battra were flying alongside each other and swooping towards the gargantuan windigo, peppering it with their own rays as Anguirus tackled a hand away from where the Bearers had to be.

Another blast of wind carved a dozen meter deep trench through the town and sheared the schoolyard from the surrounding buildings, requiring siren and cyborg to shield their eyes from the debris. The rapidly increasing damage was scaling with a growing chance Eurus would get past the kaiju eventually or score a lucky hit with the wind bursts. The odds of them all getting out of this were dropping by the minute and Zephyrus no doubt knew that.

“If that thing stays here or gets through another portal, it’ll be an absolute catastrophe. Your uncle gives Grand King Ghidorah a serious run for his acclaim,” Gigan frowned before attempting a bit of levity to avoid his spirits getting dampened, which could be lethal around a windigo if one lost their conviction, “Should I be afraid of what’ll happen if I ever make you angry?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m not claiming them as family,” Adagio shrugged as she brushed a piece of rubble off her torn sleeves, “You’ll just have to hope Gloriosa keeps me from dismantling you if that event happens… How far are Sonata, Megalon, and that Bearer?”

“Close enough to make a jump.”

“Get to it then,” Adagio huffed as she poked him in the forehead with a finger, “Or none of us are to live long enough for you to see me angry one day!”

“But-“

It was the third party who cut them off, Gaea Everfree shouting at the top of her lungs after she managed to grab onto Zephyrus but was forced back by another wave of rending gales cutting the ground off from between them. Sent flying backwards, she caught herself on some uprooted vines and landed next to her compatriots to look back at Gigan.

“We got more than enough to take this one out, but we don’t have the time while chasing after them like this! Getting more folks might find a way to slow them down,” The Nymph panted as she nodded to Gigan again, “We'll be fine! Just hurry!”

Stealing a glance at the both of them and feeling a tightening in his chest despite lacking the muscle or organs for that, a curious mental sensation, Gigan nodded and jumped up to teleport. First high up into the air to get a line of sight and then onto an incoming human vehicle, not even needing to double check if Megalon’s locational ping was in it given it would be just about the only car brave enough or stupid enough to be heading this direction.

His pulse quickened again upon spotting a geyser of thrown debris moving rapidly from the beach line and directly en route from where the car was going, carving through buildings in its path.

The cyborg disappeared in a blink of red light and reappeared on the hood of Warhawk’s car. The startled man understandably called out as he swerved from the sudden jar and to then keep the car from crashing into anything whilst his vision was obscured with the half metal man on the windshield.

“Bro!” Megalon chirped happily as he perked up from his seat.

They could see Gigan yelling something frantically, but with the storm outside and the car’s revving engine, it was inarticulate.

“What did he say?!” Warhawk yelled out, throwing his voice back at the other cyborg after remembering them talking to each other remotely.

Gigan was looking off to the right, towards the shore and even with his mechanical eyes it was still very visible on his face that he saw something noteworthy in a very unwelcome manner. Warhawk tried to see it, but he couldn’t look over the passing line of strip mall stores.

“He said-“ Megalon started but he was cut off when Gigan, blade sticking out of his fist, rammed his hand through the windshield and screamed through the resulting hole in the glass.

“I SAID REVERSE! NOW!”

Warhawk didn’t question nor argue, just complied. Wasn’t the first time this happened today, especially when that big metal monster with a beak screamed at them all earlier to go away. Come to think of it, something about this new passenger’s voice sounded familiar.

He yanked on the shifter and stomped on the brake and gas in an alternating motion. Pinkie, Sonata, Megalon, and Wallflower all went lurching forward and one of them evidently hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. The car suddenly reversed momentum and sped backwards, just in time for the sudden shock wave of razor wind to come scouring through a music store, blasting through the concrete and brick whilst shearing right through metal. Had the car maintained its course a few seconds longer, they’d have been right in the path.

The car sped backwards before screeching to a stop, Gigan letting out a breath he didn’t necessarily need and hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“HowYoudwoinBro?”

His deadpan expression glanced at the car, seeing the smooshed face of his little brother looking back at him. Gigan shrugged, climbing off the hood and helping the kaiju, siren, and bearer get out.

“You’re missing an arm,” Gigan pouted as Megalon helped to hold up a shaking Sonata.

“Miss Lea got him patched up!” Pinkie chirped as she in turn helped Megalon on his feet.

“That’s three for three Defenders I owe an apology to. Good work Megs, now my pride is going to be as shattered as these icy bastards are going to be by the end of the day,” Gigan shrugged, “We got a situation and we need a hand to make one of those two things happen.”

“Hey!” Megalon whined.

“As you can see, these frost demon bastards managed to summon their last number. Those girls' crazy magic is our only shot but I can see from the lack of glowing bits that something happened here,” He noted, motioning to the mundane and normal-looking Pinkie Pie.

“Yeeaaah reason for that,” Pinkie wilted slightly as she nodded towards Sonata.

Sonata Dusk looked the worst Gigan had ever seen her and honestly it looked like a miracle she was even standing on two feet with obviously loaned clothes on. She reached for her neck and pulled aside a blanket, revealing both her very ugly and ragged scar but also glimmering Element of Laughter. One that stayed lit up as Pinkie remained close to her.

“She kinda turned into one of those frost demons we were talking about until we got her to calm down,” Pinkie winced, “I took a chance, and the Element crystal seems to be keeping her from a repeat incident.”

So they couldn’t take the Element off Sonata without risking her stability, not without her necklace back. And they couldn’t take out either Windigo without more Element magic. And they weren’t going to get more Element magic unless Pinkie here got herself back to full strength and returned Twilight’s Element.

“Alright,” Gigan huffed, “We can still do this. We just have to get Sonata’s necklace and Twilight’s crystal back from Zephyrus. I’ll fill you in on those details and others. We get those back, and the Bearers of that crazy magic can take care of Mr. Winter up there.”

Gigan motioned up and elicited plenty of shock from his party, most of whom had not gotten a good look at Eurus yet due to being in a car with a roof, the storm, and having to weave between the buildings. Much less the multi-hundred-meter-tall Eurus shaking his head because he almost got in at the Bearers again before they could get another shot off, and had instead gotten a salvo of red spiral fire from an irate Godzilla. The windigo was more phased than damaged, still stocking forward in equal parts intimidating and ghastly sight of withstanding the inferno.

-I take it back, not even Grand King could tank that, and nothing else should if it didn’t have those weird conditions behind what could hurt it… I really, really hate these things.-

“We’ll find a way to get the necklaces off and get you three into the fray,” Gigan noted, trying to mentally re-calibrate, “Good news is the Memory Stone was destroyed and X and the human Twilight’s memories were freed.”

“Are they free now?” Pinkie Pie said as she perked up, “I kinda only caught every-other-fifth-word when you gave the download to Megalon.”

“They’d figured out a way to purge the windigo prior. One of the Bearer’s boyfriends had been hijacked and she jogged his mind. Once the memories were back, Aria did the same to X. She purged the windigo with her magic alongside a mutual boost with Sunset Shimmer and then the Bearers destroyed it,” Gigan explained, “The human Twilight Sparkle’s body and memories haven’t yet rejoined, Zephyrus has been stubbornly good at dodging so we need all the help we can get stopping them.”

The still-seated occupant of the car perked up as Gigan motioned upwards. The purple hued mass of magic indicative of Twilight’s memories zoomed overhead to try and rejoin their body.

“We’ll just have to take this one step at a time.”

“What about me?” Warhawk yelled out, the green-skinned man getting up from his driver’s seat, “Road’s busted up ahead.”

“My warp drive is almost on the fritz, I can’t haul more people than necessary. You’ve done more than most and just might be one of the most impressive humans I’ve seen,” Gigan pointed backwards with his thumb, “Get yourself clear and try not to die.”

“Yeah! Besides you gotta live this one! Who else will be on our tournament team next month for the season!?” Pinkie Pie chirped as she waved at her compatriot and flashed him a thumbs up, “Don’t worry about us, so don’t let us have to worry about you!”

"Online friend, got Nata into digital simulation sports when she was infirm,” Megalon whispered to Gigan, who just shrugged and nodded along with it.

“And w-what about me?!” Wallflower Blush stammered as she undid her seatbelt, having been seated on the other side of the car as she got out to start around, “I-If Zephyrus is here then Twilight is-“

A red flash of plasma and a thin line of death scorched the brick wall next to her. It would have burned her foot clean off had she stepped another stride closer. She stopped instantly and Gigan glared coldly. He was not a machine, he had already experienced being one through extraordinary circumstances and while he never would’ve regretted what he did, he would hopefully never entertain that potentiality again. So he had to try and be as free of strife as he could whilst working on cold logic to address the source of a lot of problems. A source of problems named Wallflower Blush he really wanted to put through a wall.

“You’re getting back in the car or walking back for all I care,” Gigan growled mechanically, “You didn’t directly cause this, but you enabled this. Besides, it’s not like you could help if you wanted to; and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt to think you do.”

He grabbed onto Pinkie and Sonata before teleporting away to a rooftop, blinking back to get Megalon. His mechanical eye diverted briefly to glimpse a figure with dark wings flying over the rooftops as Adagio and Gaea chased after it to keep them away from the Bearers. The incoming memories similarly forced Zephyrus back and into a portal they closed behind themselves. All saw the spectacle and listened.

“We need to slow them down for Twilight’s memories to get back to them and there is nothing you can do. You must have helped my brother and his friends, so for that I’m giving you a small mercy. Get out.”

He warped away with Megalon and, after some time observing the battle joined anew, Warhawk got back in his car and re-revved the engine as the back door closed behind him. Still very much taken away by all that had happened and just trying to go with the flow, he shrugged to attempt at maintaining a casual demeanor as he turned his head backwards.

“Gonna be a bit till I can turn us around, Miss,” Warhawk started, “Roads too banged up ahead, so we’ll be going reverse. Think you can-“

The empty backseat was all that was in sight. He didn’t see the glimpse of green hair running into an alleyway she knew very well to lead back to the schoolyard.

Wallflower Blush in many ways wanted time to think, time to collect her thoughts as memories of loneliness, crushing self-deprecation, and misery mixed. But the mental gymnastics to avoid blame couldn’t happen again. She wouldn’t let them happen again to escape blame.

She had been a horrible person.

She could try to deflect blame, arguing the circumstances she’d been thrust into lead to all of this and there was some truth in it. Claim that without Zephyrus, she’d never have wound up doing what she did.

-Except, that’s not true.-

Her fingers curled, digging into the broken ground as distant flickers of memory from her time discovering the Memory Stone flashed before her eyes.

-I found out how it worked and still used it on others.-

First it had been her conscience telling her who to use it on. Bullies, a rude customer at her parent’s business, “people who deserved it” as she’d rationalize it. She had power over memory and that took time to sink in, but once it did… There hadn’t been as many restrictions. She’d only used it once more after that before meeting Twilight, but the rationale behind it couldn’t be so easily justified. She had done it on reflex after a moment of awkwardness asking a nice guy she liked to the dance. He’d never noticed her before, but there was nothing to assume him bad or that he’d reject a request. In most situations and to most people, it would be no harm no foul if he said yes or not, but in that moment, when he hesitated after she asked him, it struck. That sudden, spurious surge of fear about rejection had seized her heart to act on all the years of neglect.

He didn’t even get a good look at her before she pulled up the stone, whimpering an apology.

“It was only a minute at most,” She told herself whilst power walking away from the oblivious young man, who’d lost not even thirty seconds of his memory.

“He won’t feel bad and wouldn’t want to know.” She’d think aloud whilst feeling a pit grow in her stomach hours later, especially when she passed him in the halls and looked for any sign of hesitation or pause from him.

“He would feel better not knowing I put him on the spot.” She’d mutter between tears, lying in bed and turning the stone over in her fingers whilst her stomach did knots; trying to get his face out of her head. Looking up at her mirror, she found herself not able to meet her own gaze, repeating her excuse over and over. In hindsight, she should have thought more about the icy chill that entered the room; but she could never know if it was just a winter draft or Zephyrus having discovered her entirely through her strife for herself and spite at others.

One way or another, he’d likely been watching her for some time, she’d been more than appealing to his notice.

Maybe she would have totally cut herself off from the stone after that. Maybe if she had someone giving her a second opinion to tell her about the spiral she was starting down, she would have stopped… Or maybe she would have just kept doing it. Fate or rather, Zephyrus’ decision, left those questions unanswered.

For every part of her mind that wanted to shift the blame, and had been doing so for who knew how long, something finally clicked into place and locked that voice out.

-Zephyrus could have found someone else. He could’ve arranged to take the stone himself or with some lackey. Someone else could have found the stone before I did… That doesn’t change anything about this.-

Wallflower Blush sniffled as she sprinted through the alleyways Boreas had chased her through for hours or days, wiping her face off to get some of the ice crystals out of her eyes and picking herself up off of the ground. Swallowing what felt like a brick in her throat, she gasped slightly on her breath before looking back at the distant flashes of battle. How so many were all fighting for their lives out there. And against foes that included an irate windigo wearing her best and only friend’s face.

They could beat him, that wasn’t in doubt, but it was a drawn-out affair with how much Zephyrus kept diving into portals. Even without Gigan saying it, she could still get a notion there was something unsaid.

Something she intended to act on if she could just get there in time-

A geyser of wind blasted through the alley behind her and Wallflower had to dive out of it, covering her face to shield her vitals from the flying debris as it battered her body. The razor’s edge of wind had gone perpendicular to her path and tore through several buildings. While the shockwave had blown away most of the dust and smoke, the buildings beginning to sag into the cavity gouged into the ground only engendered more.

Shaking off cuts from glass and rubble, Wallflower coughed and staggered back to her feet, the way she came gone now.

-No turning back now.-

=============

Eurus retaliated against another blast by the Elements present with a thundering roar that shouted out everything for miles. Godzilla could feel his eardrums begin to rupture, but resisted the instinctive urge to shake or grab at his head from the reflex of pain hitting his internal canals. At this point he well figured out what came next, and intentionally threw himself between the gargantuan demon and the Bearers.

He wasn’t alone in his actions, as Anguirus was right alongside his compatriot. They couldn’t do much to physically harm the monstrosity that dwarfed even them, the windigo only had one weakness that dealt any kind of meaningful damage and neither of them had it. Short of inviting them into their minds for a mental battle, which Junior did not especially think Eurus would be obliging nor a remotely safe option for that, the biggest thing they could do was protect those that could end this.

It was an unfortunate testament to Eurus’ sheer power and magnitude that several repeated blasts of incomplete Element magic had failed to deliver crippling damage. The windigo was indeed hurt, but not disabled. Another blast along his elbow and shoulder recoiled the demon, but he regained his momentum soon after. He was still very much active, irate, and vicious as ever even whilst wounded. The winds kicking up even further seemed proof of that much. The invisible razors, only trackable from direction and how they gouged into the ground, zoomed forwards. First kicking up geysers of torn waters, then split sand, concrete, storefronts; and then slamming into them.

Godzilla grunted in sharp pain, suppressing an urge to call out. In one of his earliest excursions, misguided humans had fired missiles that were essentially solid javelins of pure, heavily reinforced metal. They had to be extremely costly to make, likely with rare components or else he would have expected them to use the construction materials in their cities more often; but they had actually managed to draw blood. It was the equivalent to him of getting stabbed with a pencil for a human and he could heal back the damage pretty quick, the wounds being more painful than debilitating.

There were only a few things that would ever suppress his ability to restore back from damage, and one of them was present right as the cold wind hit him like a slashing blade and he felt any number of horrible thoughts crisscross his mind.

Godzilla staggered, his chest, shoulder, and thigh bloodied without the wounds immediately sealing shut as his body absorbed some of the magical energy on reflex. He growled and shook his head, forcing the foreign influence out of his mind and willing his body to stop taking in what was around them. His form liked to absorb certain types of energy like a sponge, which complicated matters back at the concert when even his human form almost wound up changing just standing too close to the music magic. Right now, when the storm was absolutely laden with dark magic, it created an unsightly effect when his body absorbed it.

Princess Luna had managed to wear him down once in their battle because that absorption hindered his ability to heal, adding to his then-massive disorientation. Lea and Princess Twilight had later told him the way his body metabolized radiation and certain energy wasn’t entirely different from highly chaotic, wild magic. Having a body constantly taking in power from outside sources like the sun, heat, or radiation definitely had its uses; but it was like trying to metabolize something toxic when it came to dark magic.

Fortunately there was a bit of a workaround he’d been figuring out, magic lessons with Chibi and Luna weren’t just about making a bigger beam.

Stomping and focusing, he flooded his body with energy and directed the resulting nuclear pulse shockwave forwards. It blew away piles of rubble set in front of him and knocked back the waters for many meters. The gashes and wounds in his body started healing, the residual dark magic he involuntarily absorbed having been purged and vented off.

-Thank you, Luna.-

He huffed in mental gratitude before reacting to a bark and looking towards Anguirus beside him and checking his compatriot over. Whilst the ankylosaur had reacted to the blowback and kinetic force of the gales, the gestalt chimera was hardly marked and carried no air of being mentally afflicted.

A response bellow by Anguirus confirmed it, his mind was unafflicted and he’d only felt the wind hit him. And yet, despite the Guardian Beast only being a bit tougher than Godzilla in terms of durability; the wind had cut him significantly less.

A glance at the ground conferred more prudent details. At the feet of both kaiju, gashes had torn into the ground from the razor wind trenching into the ground. But right during contact, where the assault on Godzilla had splintered and broken after cutting into him until it ran out of momentum; the trench heading for Anguirus split in two some meters in front of the kaiju. A smaller portion had continued forward, most split like water on the bow of a ship.

A lot of speculation on Terra existed as to how exactly Godzilla took on a leadership role amongst the Defender faction. Many a human and non-Defender alike had thought it because he was simply the most powerful, an alpha by the ideals of might. Seeing him fight, one might get that impression given very few were on par with the monster king one on one. But the reason the king dragon of the new millennium had wound up in an authority position of lineages and lives sometimes many multitudes his senior was what was going on inside of his head, not just what came firing out in the plasma rays.

They’d both gotten hit by the shearing wind, and yet it was Anguirus who wasn’t requiring himself to heal. Healing Godzilla managed best when he purged the dark magic from his body. And there was one big difference between how Godzilla fueled his body and how Anguirus fueled his mana based one.

Terran magic and Equestrian magic did not coexist well. Where one was, the other could be contained or blocked away. It worked when Lea used her magic to funnel the Rainbooms and Siren’s burst into him at the shore, and in how Anguirus withstood being unwillingly transformed much better than he could. In passing, he’d also come to wonder if the especially powerful alicorn magic was so successful in blocking the gyaos not just out of raw power, but this factor given they too were at least partially mana based.

A thought for later when they won this.

Godzilla roared and barked, conferring a new plan to the others. Anguirus followed through and back stepped to where the majority of the Rainbooms were, standing over the humans and transformed-alicorns like a sentry. When another wind blast came swooping around, he banked his side over to meet it and let the once unstoppable cutting blade shattered across his shell. It still registered, as he groaned in mild pain and lost a few spikes; but he was weathering the hits better than others could hope.

Irys shrieked and swooped down to help her brother, beginning to project her sonic barrier; only to be called up by Godzilla. Eurus screamed out over the lot of them, privy to the comparatively small pests impeding his mission and lunging for the lot of them. A flash of brightly-hued wings swooped in front of his face and Eurus briefly thought he was looking at the visage of an equally huge giant before the wings flapped and propelled Battra Lea forwards. Usually magic would be her forte, but her entire spellbook had been thrown out of whack as of late.

But, when you still had the spell for high energy optic blasts and bolstered strength; you made due. Latching onto the demon’s face, she repeatedly let loose with the prism beams and clawed around his surviving antler.

As Lea distracted the windigo as best she could, Godzilla called out to Irys again before taking in a deep breath and taking aim at the pier and waterfront property. The loosed breath attack was drastically lower power than it typically was on intention. If it was even the average he’d probably wind up blowing up the block and then some. Instead the initial beam he shot into the air before sweeping down widened, shifted in color from blue to orange, and changes from a plasma ray to a kind of phosphorus vapor, and then from a vapor into an open flame as the temperature remained hot enough to ignite the buildings more than the kinetic force would obliterate them.

The fires swirled and grew despite the wind trying to snuff them out and Irys understood Godzilla’s intent. He’d been told by Anguirus what happened last time she was around a lot of open flames. She dove for the flames and felt her mana reach out to begin drawing it all in.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she glimpsed something familiar. Two forms of red and purple sprinting down a street towards the center of town and the school. Irys’ mind briefly registered the image of what looked like Sunset Shimmer and Aria Blaze, but not before someone else had seen them too and took their chance at them.

Sunset felt a chill shoot up her spine as a long shadow loomed over them as they ran back towards town. Her eyes widened and she looked up at a similarly shadowed Irys as a crown of antlers emerged behind the Guardian Beast of Sound.

The gyaos squawked in surprise when the then-cut-off low powered atomic breath suddenly was forced to re-energize back to full capacity and then some. Going rapidly from white to blue, to red with crackling spirals, the beam swung around her as Irys rolled aside to dodge. In her confusion at wondering about the friendly fire, Irys glimpsed Battra careening through the air as well and Godzilla roaring aloud. She tucked into a tight spiral, swirling around the spiral fire ray that was quickly swept through the air. In the milliseconds that ticked by, she could see Godzilla turning aside and intentionally trying to avoid her and force the windigo behind her away from those others.

In her fright to dodge, muscle memory had actually caused her to accidentally dodge into his line of fire and the saurian was compensating as best he could. Miraculously, as the blazing plasma’s convecting heat managed to pierce through even the windigo fueled storm, he avoided striking her. Instead the actual target was struck, the one the gyaos hadn’t seen out of her line of sight, the lack of forewarning noise they made on approach due to their partially ethereal body, and her focus on the fires below.

The spiral fire ray could have obliterated whole armies or leveled large islands in one sweep. When it smashed into Eurus' right arm that had almost smashed into Irys, the sheer kinetic force and heat would have ended most kaiju in history in a single shot. But Junior wasn’t focused on measuring Ghidorah against demon, just doing all he could against the latter. Eurus was still pushing back, impossible as it seemed.

Tremors shot through the ground for miles as Godzilla’s feet started to dig trenches from the recoil, eyes still locked upon the gigantic form fully emerging out of the portal to meet his greatest venture yet. Eurus’ feet perched upon the sea floor and constantly froze the water where he stood, creating an oscillating tidal flux of the waters instantly evaporating from the spiral fire’s heat only to solidify mid-air from the windigo’s cold. And yet, Eurus’ hand along with the rest of the charging windigo just kept coming through the torrent even as the air around it was riddled with shockwaves from just the impact of the beam striking the windigo.

The Eastern Wind shrieked and broke into a full on charge, intent on flattening everything in front of him.

The King of the Monsters could feel the cold setting in, impossibly so as it seemed. This was like experiencing that wretch Notus a thousand times over. But amongst the painful memories the full focus of the demon brought to the forefront, from nearly killing his brother as a berserk Nightmare in recent memory to the numerous times he’d been tempted to fire back at the humans in the past; one particular jogged recollection had an unintended effect.

Standing in an alien forest alongside three other champions against a burning mountain cast in the same image. His perspective grew in height after the others fell. It was a potentiality he’d averted in more ways than one, some more direct than others. That didn’t change the aching stinging the scar that went through his chest and out his back gave off when it became visible.

A flash of rainbow light, still brilliant even with it being incomplete as it was, flew past his face and helped him to refocus. The Bearers had not taken his stand as a sign to stand alone. But they were not in the best shape.

============

“BLAST 'EM AGAIN!” Rainbow Dash screamed out as she clutched her crystal so tightly one could wonder if she’d be the first to crush it instead of Applejack with the boosted strength.

She braced as best she could, but she still got knocked over when another tsunami of often razor-like wind smashed into their position again. Anguirus banked to block it as best he could with his body, but some still got through even if it wasn’t rending the Bearers to pieces. Blown backwards and skidding painfully across the broken concrete, the Bearers all staggered to their feet.

“We- Need!” Rarity gasped and panted as she almost collapsed, requiring Fluttershy and Twilight to help hold her up, “The- others!”

The repeated overuse of the Elements had been taxing on all of them. Maybe it was because the Elemental Magic was just as much a part of them as it was the physical crystals, maybe it was sheer usage whilst incomplete, or a combination of the two along with general inexperience. That and Eurus’ storm had been wearing them down worse than anything else had prior. Abrading them every second in mind and body.

When they managed to obliterate Boreas and Notus, that was uplifting. Sunset’s stand against Eurus had helped to keep their nerves even when they found themselves hitting a wall. And despite the uneasiness, the bits of ice forming on some of the group’s skin, and the unsteadiness some had gotten on their footing; they remained transfixed on the battle of titans without one thought of retreat in their minds. Godzilla was still firing against Eurus as Battra and Irys flanked and tried to draw the focus of the massive windigo, Anguirus hanging back to block another salvo of hits that did manage to chink even his armor and nearly knocked the group of heroines over again.

The question was less about helping and the want to do so, and more how to do it.

“We’re- not hittin’ them hard enough,” Applejack huffed after looking at Princess Twilight, “We’re still down three Elements now. Even with the spell not needin’ music magic for the light show, we need more!”

“And abandon Sensei to fight alone?! Uh uh! No dice!” Rainbow Dash barked as she stood up to her taller friend.

“Ah’ didn’t say that! Ah’ was thinking we don’t have time to be useless an’ ah’ HATE being useless!” Applejack barked back with a glimmer in her eye, “He can’t stop ‘em, so we gotta save him! An’ some of us are about ready to collapse!”

Applejack frowned as she motioned to Rarity, “We can’t waste time pulling a four-lady chorus for a seven woman band! We need more power, ‘fore we keel over!”

Rainbow Dash grit her teeth in a frown as a near freezing tear ran down her face. She clenched her fists whilst looking up at what seemed to be a resigned fate. The other kaiju couldn’t win this for them, regardless of how awesome and enormous they were. The power radiating off Godzilla’s act seemed to eclipse anything she could see herself capable of, and yet it wasn’t doing much but impede and get the living mountain of a demon’s attention.

The feeling of a countdown clock was ongoing and the anxiety of not knowing how to stop it was present on all of their minds. A clock that included others possibly dying for them, because they were the only ones who could stop all of this; yet lacked the power to do so.

“Wh-What if we could do something?!” Dash stammered through another tear.

“Like what?” Applejack frowned as her own cheek was creased with a frosting line, “We gave it our best shot an’ we didn’t do enough!”

“And there’s no time to high-tail it for Sunset, Pinkie, or get Twilight her Element back!” Dash yelled back, the countdown clock feeling like it was rapidly approaching zero.

There was a reason the Elements were meant to be a complete set, interacting and balancing one another. When left incomplete, some situations could crop up. Such as bitter honesty and strict loyalty in an impasse and with no empathy to link them together. Applejack wasn’t wrong about their situation and Rainbow Dash’s heart was in the right place.

So it was perhaps a bit of a chance fate that it was something this set of Bearers would notice their Equestrian counterparts that otherwise shared a name, a face, and so much more with them wouldn’t. The fact that two ponies the Equestrians venerated but they saw as just their friend and principal was standing in their midst, the former even sporting a faded pair of glowing hooves, wings, and a horn.

“We can’t do enough, going at the pace we are now using the Elements alone,” Dash said as she focused on her necklace and held it inside a clenched hand.

“What are you doing?” Fluttershy perked as she puzzled at the sight of her compatriot’s manifest wings starting to flicker out. Only this time, contrary to initial confusion and fear, it wasn’t because the overwhelming presence of Eurus and dark magic was interfering with the transformation.

Rainbow Dash strained as she tried to feel the power which had been inside her in a palpable form ever since the first confrontation at the school. Seemed like such a long time ago they were working against the she-demon that seemed like a luxury vacation compared to what they were up against now. Those initial bursts of confusion, fear, and trepidation when that energy would spike up and cause her to suddenly move at extraordinary speed. Especially the bewildering result of whenever she played music.

“You- said we always had magic, this world had magic just like where you’re from, but it’s been dormant,” Rainbow Dash strained, looking through a cracked eyelid at Celestia and Twilight, “That we especially as Bearers had a lot of it in us already before we got these things. So if the crystals need a complete set to be effective, what if we fueled it with something else?”

She lightly shook her hand to indicate the crystal, “So far we’ve been using these things for the light show, but what if we put more of ourselves in it?”

Celestia and Twilight paused and glanced at each other, realizing neither of them had an answer. But the light around the Element of Loyalty clutched in Rainbow Dash’s hand was starting to intensify in tandem with her transformation dimming.

“Y-You could overtax your magic though,” Twilight cautioned, “The Elements were always meant to be used together and we’ve already used them a lot without a complete set. If you try to use your own magic to fuel the spell, you might even lose it entirely or worse!”

Rainbow Dash only smirked.

“I managed without it, managed my whole life so far mostly mundane,” She quipped, “Well, mundane as someone as awesome as I can be.”

“She’s right, the others are giving it their all so we might as well too. It is remiss of generosity not to give when able!” Rarity piped as she followed suit, taking away her own transformation with a bit of effort and putting everything she had into her Element and giving it her own magic.

“Girls, I’m only cautioning this in regard to if the Elements will still work once we get all of the others… I know there isn’t a worry or selfishness about wanting to keep your powers amongst you if this proves permanent,” Celestia frowned at the group even if some part of her was feeling no small amount of pride. She was the first Bearer of the Elements alongside Luna, and it had been her hope like-minded heroes would one day find them eventually.

If anything, this was affirmation it was the right decision in her mind because she couldn’t imagine not potentially giving up her powers, temporary or otherwise, for the sake of others. If this stunt of overclocking the Elements to make up for their lesser number worked, any setback would be worth it.

“I always felt like this magic was like me once we got a handle on it,” Fluttershy beamed as she lost her wings and hard light animals, “So I’m not afraid of not being me. If the Elements work for us because of who we are, I don’t think that we’ll have trouble using them again later. Magic could come back and even if it didn’t, we used it for a good reason.”

“Logic makes sense to me,” Applejack paused before looking at Twilight, “Does it to you?”

Twilight sighed as she shrugged her shoulders, “I admit, we are on untrodden ground here. But the other Elements didn’t lose their magic when mine got taken and you all didn’t even have your crystals when we confronted Sunset… I can’t see it not doing something. I just don’t know what that something will be!”

“Heh, suits me,” Applejack smirked before taking hold of her own necklace and following suit, apprehension being quicker to go away now.

The four humans gathered round and held hands, looking back to Godzilla’s stand against Eurus.

Applejack sniggered, “You know, a tune comes to mind right ‘bout now.”

“Thinking of music at a time like this?” Rarity deadpanned as she cocked an eyebrow at Applejack.

“Well, ‘member that one from Elementary school we whipped up around winter? About a certain someone from our little kid years?”

“I mean, it figures you would remember,” Fluttershy playfully shrugged, “You were the only one who ever got a good look at her besides Flash, so we had to, but the lyrics were based on what you two said.”

“Yeah, and it was the first melody I ever came up with and carried,” Dash grinned, “Besides… We did find out earlier this week she really was real and AJ wasn’t just hallucinating about a homeless woman talking to her in the woods.”

Applejack, relieved in the casual danger dialogue, just snorted and lightly bopped RD upside the head.

The cyan young woman sniggered and tapped her foot to make up for the lack of instruments, “And a 1.. and a 2.. and a 1-2-3-!”

The melody was cheerful and bouncy, with highly simplified lyrics. It spoke of overly exaggerated feats of heroism and funny, benign attributes for the sake of comedy. About fighting evil in the rays of the moon and then making breakfast for all the forest animals by the rays of the sun. Brushing her hair with bird beaks, and then saving cars on a hillside. A symbol of heroism, life of cheer, and comedically over the top feats. Exactly the kind of song one would think a bunch of little kids would make up about a tall tale. A legend of the Everfree, the story of the Tree Angle Wysteria, in a ballad by the children she’d saved.

The rainbow of light formed around them as a song chorus built up against the howling winds. And this time, the radiance started to form a shape.

==========

The spiral fire continued to crash into the oncoming living avalanche that was Eurus.

More and more scars showed up across the reptilian as he put everything they had and then some into holding Eurus back. Irys and Battra were all doing their best to try to get its attention as Anguirus threw himself into one of the other lunging arms in a bid to slow it down.

The monster king was far more powerful than his predecessors, who themselves were thought of as incarnations of destruction or even kami by some; and not without good reason. But he had his limits, and maintaining a spiral fire for upwards of a minute or more was certainly taxing.

His best hope was that other heroes would know what to do with the time he could buy them.

It was a hope that found itself vindicated. Another light shot past his towering form and rocketed into the even more gargantuan mass of Eurus. Except unlike a rainbow of light like before, this one was forming a mass with a defined shape.

It was jerry-rigged with the full extents of Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness, and Generosity working whilst still missing most of Laughter and a cobbled together composite Magic. But, focused through a combined song it offered a glimpse of what potential there was. And said potential came in the form of a pale, almost blinding mass in the shape of an alicorn crashing into Eurus after briefly growing to a size exceeding even the kaiju. It struck Eurus in the arm currently clashing with the Spiral Fire and caused the windigo to recoil backwards, letting out a shriek of genuine pain as cracks formed along his arm.

Godzilla felt his focus briefly divert again to those behind him, his body absorbing a few of the radiating energies of the burst as benign pride welled up to push some of those painful memories and nightmares of Leviathans and Burning Earths aside.

He could not stop Eurus. That much was very clear. But the Bearers, some of which had become his pupils, could. The thought of the girls and Celestia came to his mind fondly, along with all else Equestria had shown and given him to know.

These humans and ponies, always so surprising. Such magnificent powers and yet living in such relative peace. He might have found fulfillment since his unexpected exile here as a teacher, but being that had arguably taught him more. Be it with the rulers, his compatriots, his mother, new family, or students; it had shown someone who used to still think themselves just a monster deep down that they still had more to give.

The Bearers were young, inexperienced, and could have no context for some of the things they would be going up against and already were faced with. He’d been there too, once.

This was going to be their triumph, especially if they could hurt Eurus like that without a full set. They just needed time, and if there was anything he could do he could at least get them that. After all, for however little he bore, he did have some magic of his own after coming here. It was all or nothing now.

The aftermath of the elemental alicorn’s explosion left numerous cracks in Eurus’ body even as he weathered the assault.

Godzilla smirked and, seizing instead of averting the memories of before, he focused with a strength he didn’t even know he had left in him, exceeding his limits.

Concentric rings formed to encircle the beam as glowing patches ignited over Godzilla’s form. Like light through magnification, the beam nearly doubled in intensity and continued as a torrent of raw power to match might with the greatest monstrosity any of them had ever seen. Eurus flinched from the impact as the spiral fire was mixed with the ultima burst. The magic laden therein was not from the Goddess directly, but there was something else in there. Not as directly deadly to it, but noteworthy all the same.

Eurus, the monster of a bygone age, though they knew it not in specifics, actually felt the impact. This wasn’t just a radioactive heat and plasma ray like before, there was something barely perceptible but ancient in the onslaught. Something similar to the kind of magic Grogar himself had. The faint essence of a destroyer deity not too different from Grogar, or something that had once been one.

Eurus lunged and made contact with the comparatively tiny Godzilla just as the torrent became a tidal wave of energy and exploded, capitalizing on the opening left by the Elemental attack. The energy tore through Eurus’ arm, blowing the Eastern Wind backwards. The resulting explosion actually managed to floor the multi-hundred-meter monstrosity, sending them crashing backwards in a tsunami that rapidly froze over with their presence. The Monster King meanwhile was sent flying backwards. He hit the ground back-first and flickered.

Godzilla’s blazing form went out and his scarred body dimmed before flickering out. Magical energy flew out of him and back towards Celestia as what was once a multi-story dinosaur became a barely conscious man. His fall of several stories was broken by several pairs of arms, Celestia with the help of many others, caught and slowed his plummet safely.

He knew he had to look absolutely horrible with how old wounds were on full display with a few new ones. But, despite how the aura of the windigo typically engendered such dread; he could admit he felt the opposite. His eyes closed and he held a hand up, too weak to get a word out.

After a few moments, someone took it and he could feel his compatriots. Friends, allies, students, all around as the two he’d exerted himself to save; Aria Blaze and Sunset Shimmer, came running after seeing his collapse. Sunset Shimmer’s power linked him to them for just a moment before he passed out.

The former unicorn stood up, one hand having held Godzilla’s and the other the whole group of Bearers.

“Is… Sensei?” Dash croaked slightly as she reached forwards.

Sunset nodded slightly, “He’ll be okay, so long as we can finish this.”

Eurus burst out of the storming seas, tall as a mountain still despite conspicuously missing an arm from the shoulder down and visibly shaking with his movements. His roars carried over the cityscape.

She managed a brave smile despite the dread risking coming back, “Told me he had faith in us.”

And his last contribution was a reminder they were not in this alone. That, even with Laughter largely absent to grant courage, kept the fires going. Anguirus grunted loudly to get their attention, walking over and looking down at the group before keeping his eyes trained on the lack of flames at the pier now. The sudden shift to more explosive power and Eurus’ advance had snuffed the fires out.

Celestia put two and two together and nodded, “His plan must have been to charge up Irys, she can absorb fire to enter an enhanced state brimming with Terran magic. Terran and Equestrian magic can’t coexist easily, so she’d be a huge boon to keep them covered until we got everyone together to bring Eurus down for good. Speaking of, how are you four?”

Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy did admittedly look quite drained; but they were still up and standing despite all the exertion and running around. Each, whilst lacking in their transformations, did fish out their necklaces to confirm the glimmer of their Elements was strong as it ever was before. In fact, in some ways it seemed even brighter.

“Not gonna be flying again anytime soon,” Dash quipped but she summoned up a smile and thumbs up, “But we ain’t out yet. Feels like a sore muscle all over but I don’t feel not like me.”

“Which means your magic will likely return later,” Twilight smiled before a part of her mind bitterly noted, ‘if we live through this’. She was keen not to verbalize that and considered their options.

Godzilla setting up the fire was a great idea but it was out, so they’d just have to get someone else. Someone that one member of the group knew well. Someone who would likely be near another they needed in Pinkie Pie. Eurus’ intrusion had caught everyone flat footed when the initial split up had been to handle Boreas as another group kept Zephyrus off their backs.

Time to change the windigo’s momentum.

“Sunset, can you give a message to Anguirus? With all this storm and wind, I don’t want to risk just saying it aloud,” Twilight huffed as she looked out into the horizon, and the enormous monstrosity which occupied a good chunk of it. With all the crazy powers these windigo had, overhearing things in their gale forces wouldn’t be too surprising and she wasn’t taking more risks.

The combined Elements were their best bet to offing Eurus and stopping all of this. But they weren’t the only ones in this fight. When Sunset transmitted her message, Anguirus snorted and nodded affirmatively before moving forward to tank another salvo of razor wind aimed at the bearers. Shrieking in a manner the windigo couldn’t possibly understand, the spiky guardian beast called up his airborne allies for the new plan.

Any attempts at caution around the windigo was thrown aside in reckless abandon to throw everything they had at it. Not even bothering to dodge or block outside of when was absolutely necessary. Their opponent lacking an arm and being knee deep in the surf helped to slow them, even if it was a perilous venture getting close and risking getting mangled by enormous claws or shot out of the air with a wind blast.

They couldn't keep this up for long but they were determined and tough enough to keep it up for just a few minutes. With luck they would only have to keep it up for one.

============

To call the circumstance Zephyrus found himself in "outmatched" would be a gross understatement. To call it much of a conflict at all would be bad comedy when suddenly they got rushed by every single Element Bearer and ally at once. Without any big distractions or an ample number of portals left, they had nothing to keep them covered.

At every single turn when they tried to counter, Frostbite Sparkle just got overwhelmed. Attempting to collapse a building on top of Adagio just resulted in Gaea blocking the rubble and Megalon busting through it to kick away the debris. Trying to loose a blast of telekinesis into Megalon meant taking focus away from Gigan and getting blindsided by him teleporting behind them. Trying to dump multiple attackers into portals leading back to Eurus' realm had initially some success but Adagio kept hitting them from range and breaking focus as Gaea kept blocking the entrances with her vines to keep anybody from falling in or physically grabbing and pulling them to safety. Even with Sonata and Pinkie less active than the others, there were more moving parts to keep track of and now there were so many attackers that trying to split them apart for isolation didn't work.

He was already well beyond overwhelmed and going to lose soon as is, but something else just made it worse.

An attempt at slashing open a portal both to intercept a loosed song magic burst by Adagio and Gaea combined just resulted in the empty air sparking. Zephyrus felt a change in the air just before looking over in horror to see as multiple Bearers closed in on them. Even without obvious powers, the likes of Rainbow Dash was sprinting towards them right alongside a still transformed Sunset Shimmer.

And two particular members of the pack, ironically the two without a crystal, is what caused the biggest jar to the windigo. Celestia and Twilight closing in caused the Western Wind to shriek in pain as the Element of Magic, reacting to its fellow Elements getting closer and two potential Bearers for it amongst their number, resumed its rebellion. Zephyrus could physically feel himself wasting away, like parts of him were rendered void due to close proximity. Whatever countdown he had estimated for himself for the time he had left was rapidly plummeting. Measured in dozens of seconds rather than minutes.

No more new portals could be opened, no escape routes made or counters to attack from. And all the while, the human Twilight's memories doggedly hounded them.

Zephyrus had only a moment to react when a massive pulling of telekinesis was launched outwards in an omnidirectional shockwave just to blowback the first wave of attackers for a brief second before the approaching Element Bearers could close in. The first pack would already be right on top of them the moment the second was up with Gaea, Megalon, Gigan, and Adagio all within ten meters of them. With only pre-existing and now scarce portals to work with now, his eyes quickly fell upon the last remaining gateway to the void. The pestering agony from the element around their neck burned, now seemingly reacting alongside the siren heart also held captive. In seconds it would tear him apart.

In a few other seconds his opponents with no concerns to pragmatism would absolutely dogpile them. He had lost and was going to die.

He could only get to the portal in time. It wasn't a matter of winning this confrontation, there was no hope of that. It was a matter of denying them their victory. Zephyrus created multiple shock waves as he barreled forward for the portal. Gigan was blown backwards into Adagio. Megalon got thrown through Gaea’s floral constructs.

Zephyrus crashed into the ground but hit it running, propelling them with successive shock waves in a mad dash for the portal as their magic started to fly out of control with the Bearers getting close. In some ways he was surprised he hadn't thought of this. If the element and to a degree the siren heart were necessary for victory, he could have dumped them both in that void and they would have been borderline irretrievable.

In the end he could suppose it was some of his own pride and hubris, for whatever emotions he was capable of expressing. He wanted to cause physical torment and agony while doing the conflict himself whilst wearing the face of someone else. To have a second chance at causing mass destruction in a physical body. He might have been much more erudite and contemplative than his compatriots, but at the end of any day he was still a demon. And a demon only existed to cause misery.

Much as some of his plans hinged on unleashing the strongest of them, he didn't want to let Eurus have all the fun. And all the plotting, all the planning, all of the wretched agony he had inflicted time and time again; to lead up to this.

All for the irony of someone who posed no threat whatsoever to meddle in last minute affairs.

"TWILIIIIGHT!"

The scream managed to cut through the storm and caused the body of Frostbite Sparkle, not Zephyrus, to briefly pause halfway from the portal. The cause made herself known standing next to said portal, next to a very particular statue that had thus far survived the destruction.

-No…-

Zephyrus felt the body, woken up more by the element and heart conflicting with his magic, act on its own and look over to lock gazes with a sobbing Wallflower Blush. In the exact same spot they had first met and what was supposed to be the former's last act in this mortal coil. In the milliseconds that were passing by, Wallflower reached for their face and neck.

-NO!-

Wallflower Blush's eyes briefly shrunk before relaxing. She hiccuped, blood spilling out of her lips. Zephyrus commanded the body to follow through, and yet it resisted. His eyes, for what they amounted to, snapped open as Frostbite Sparkle’s eyes trembled. A tear ran down her cheek as a droplet of blood hit the ground. Rammed through her gut and erupting out of Wallflower Blush’s back, several icy talons made of dark magic began to melt and not because they were covered in hot blood.

The bonds suppressing the soul within Frostbite Sparkle, forged by Zephyrus to assume full control of the body, started to crack, and break.

-“No…”- Zephyrus hissed as recollections filtered through the mind in broken pieces.

Brief flashes of this very statue they were standing next to, the very same young woman standing in front of Twilight.

Outside of the body, with Frostbite Sparkle stuck in place as Wallflower staggered forward, the demon ascended remained motionless as her only friend in the world tightly grabbed the hand rammed through her and gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a hug. The cloud of disembodied memories at last caught up and flew into their rightful owner. Flashes of light scanned across Frostbite Sparkle’s whited-out eyes as the demonic magic induced gaze lifted from her expression.

The broken memories were fully restored, the human Twilight Sparkle at last re-experiencing the first time she met her best friend. The bonds holding her soul captive, now that it’s sense of self had been restored, shattered.

-“NO NO NO NO!”- Zephyrus shrieked as Wallflower managed to just barely look her compatriot in the eyes. Tearful gaze met tearful gaze as Frostbite Sparkle wept whilst still frozen in place.

Wallflower, shakingly, moved the hand across the shoulders to touch at the necklace which didn’t repulse her away on account of Twilight’s subconscious will.

Frostbite Sparkle’s body twitched and contorted, Zephyrus’ true face briefly overlaying Twilight’s transformed state as a scream brimming with pure spite and hatred, reserved for a select few, called out.

“USELESS WRETCH!” Zephyrus roared as he forced control of the body in that moment, wrenching Wallflower’s hand away in a way that popped a joint out of alignment before he kicked the mortally wounded in the gut.

Twilight Sparkle felt Wallflower’s hand slide off her own, fingers trailing over the skin as the ice had melted away. In slow-motion she could see each individual digit pull off a few droplets of blood as her best friend’s body hit the floor. Zephyrus willed their body into the hell that lay beyond the portal, but Frostbite again did not move forward.

One half of their face was overlaid by the demon, screaming inarticulately with a manner that sounded like constantly shattering glass; the sharpness of pure spite at the last-minute interference. The other half was turned down into a growing glower of horror and shock, tears streaming from their eyes. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t even sure what she was doing, too overtaken by the contrast of what she saw and what she remembered. The memory of seeing Wallflower at that very spot months ago, smiling like it was the first time she ever had in public as she stood in the presence of who would become her best friend. Against the sight of her own best friend laying on her side, an increasing pool of blood growing from underneath her as she helplessly twitched and spasmed like a dying insect.

Twilight didn’t think, she just acted.

She tore at herself, fighting Zephyrus in every manner possible for a scrap of interference and control over her own body. The windigo cursed her, cursed everything in tongues and words none understood but registered the intent of.

A hand clutched around one of the necklaces on her neck and Twilight managed to wrench it off. With so many parties closing in on her, her sobbing eye turned to lock gazes with who would mean most to. Through her grit teeth and sobbing eyes, the girl attempted whatever apology she could possibly summon; for nothing would’ve been nearly enough in her mind, and she threw it before Zephyrus, still controlling the other half of her body, could stop her. The siren heart went airborne, and Sonata Dusk’s own quivering eyes stayed trained upon it.

She might have fallen over instantly upon reaching to catch it had Megalon not stayed to hold and support her from falling. And when her aim seemed to come up short, a pink hand held onto her own as the other reached further out and caught the airborne treasure. Pinkie Pie turned and reunited heart with body. Sonata reached for the Element of Laughter and pulled it off herself. In perfect synchronization, she and Pinkie faced one another, gleefully smiled in sheer relief and victory, and put the other’s necklace back on its rightful owner.

They embraced as a light grew between them and both turned to tackle-hug their compatriot.

There was a burst of magic and light, with a sound of music. The wind from the storm blown back as the goliath form of Megalon came erupting upwards from the ground with a single drill raised towards the skies. Magic was swirling around him, that of a song carrying the tones of pure beneficence as taught by a beloved aunt. It shielded the kaiju from the storm and kept him stable with his compatriots. Standing on the stump of his other arm, held flat in front of his chest, a fully restored Sonata Dusk and energized Pinkie Pie stood together.

The latter had her elemental enhancements fully remastered and brighter than ever. Holding onto her hand, the magic was copied into Sonata as she continued to sing her heart out. Not just for the first time since her mutilation, but possibly the greatest in her life. She too ascended and soon was surrounded by a cloak of magical constructs, resembling a pair of fins for wings but otherwise in clear emulation of a Bearer’s state.

Several wind blasts from Eurus’ battle with the kaiju still managed to trench through that part of town. Megalon let out a trilling chirp, roaring backwards defiantly at the monstrosity as he worked to shield his friends. His compound eyes were locked upon the battle as Battra latched onto Eurus’ face to fire her beams point-blank into his eyes, Irys dive-bombed his remaining arm that had Anguirus pinned; and the free-ankylosaur wasted no time rolling into a ball to literally launch himself up at the giant's face using their arm as a ramp to collide with Eurus' cheek.

“Tell them the plan!” Aria Blaze shouted to Sunset Shimmer, who turned to run but was grabbed by Gigan. Perhaps in a brief moment of consideration towards the last time he grabbed a member of the party, the cyborg remembered to hold a hand up and wave it in a non-threatening gesture before teleporting them away to close the distance quicker.

Princess Twilight Sparkle really tried not to think about how that looked from the outside as she maintained a forward charge with the others to all close in on Frostbite Sparkle at the same time. Telekinetic blasts, the last of the windigo’s power, smashed into several compatriots and blew them backwards several paces. Adagio, Aria, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, all forced back just a fraction of a moment to put her at the front of the pack. The next blast was aimed at her, and Twilight braced, only to feel a contrary wave blow past her and intercept the hit. A pair of footsteps rapidly beat the ground beside her.

Out of the corner of her eye and through the shield of her arms, Princess Twilight saw her mentor running alongside her; radiating magic flaring up more than it had before to protect them both. A relieved smile briefly crossed her lips as they charged forward together through the last line of defense, the rest of them only a few paces behind them as Zephyrus’ magical strength had left him.

The Princess of Magic looked forward as her other self was holding Zephyrus still as best she could to avert any other magical assault on the party, but in their death throes the demon was not making it easy or simple. Her tearful eye looked upon her other self, the heroine princess from another world, and perhaps a thousand errant thoughts crossed the native human’s mind.

All of this started and was manipulated in some way or another because she had wanted to be like her. This very demon coaxed her along and deceived her into thinking just because they had the same name, the same face, and some of the same personality traits; that they were the same. That she could be a suitable alternative to her hero when this world was under danger from a threat from beyond. That surely the other Twilight from Equestria had risen to the challenge when she was confronted with the same situation and that’s what made her great.

‘Sci-Twi’ as some used to jeeringly call her could tell herself a thousand times how manipulative and cunning Zephyrus was. That he could have arranged for anyone else to wind up in the same situation, and that might not be entirely incorrect. Didn’t change the fact this was her doing at the end of the day. She just wanted to do everything she could to make it right.

The human Twilight tore the Element of Magic off from her body and held the crystal free, looking right at her counterpart as the milliseconds ticked by. Five meters away, four meters away; each step closing it.

The human Twilight’s eye widened in pain as her hand, still wet with Wallflower’s blood, twitched. The other arm, still claw in a single talon of ice on one finger, was tightly clenched around her throat with Zephyrus’ aura visibly surrounding it. The awful scraping of shattering glass in a continuous, raucous chorus, saying outwards as the demon damned and cursed his former host; driving the talon into her throat. His other arm briefly manifested around her hand to yank it backwards. Her fingers unclenched on reflex and the Element crystal went flying backwards towards the portal.

Twilight and Celestia saw it all.

The Element airborne, the jarred and sobbing face of the other Twilight, Zephyrus’ ghostly image disintegrating away as he grinned with a head-splitting smile; and the icy talon digging in further towards an artery and windpipe with intent to tear it open. The skin was already broken and the windpipe punctured.

There was only a second to act and they did what their hearts had told them, the facet which made them worthy of being Bearers in the first place. Both grabbed onto the windigo's arm about to slit the other Twilight’s throat and pulled it away safely. The airborne element, with such a showing of beneficence by two Bearers, glowed like the sun and washed over them all. The surge of magic briefly manifested empowered forms upon both former alicorns, radiating the light back into the possessed body and demon.

Zephyrus' smile vanished as he was torn apart in every way imaginable, rending asunder the manifest form of Frostbite Sparkle with him.

Princess Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, back in the states of completely normal women, knelt to the ground with their hands putting pressure on the bleeding throat of a second Twilight Sparkle. The natural born human was mute but her eyes said her ‘Sorrys’ all the same. The distant glimmer of the Element of Magic’s crystal flickered in the dark void as the portal closed up behind it. Not a tear was shed over it as the others arrived on scene.

Nor when they fearlessly looked at the battle of giants and ran towards it.

=======

Irys was sent rocketing into the ground after getting swatted out of the air, bombarded by several follow-up blasts of razor-edged wind. The gyaos whimpered as she attempted to rise, unable to get out of the way from further onslaught. A shadow passed overhead and the very first foe the apex gyaos had ever battled in this new world threw herself in the way to defend her. Battra also bore mana and also was highly resistant to the dark magic laden in the wind blasts, but Eurus had more than enough power to still cause some damage even with the dampening effect.

And while he was not empowered by the loss of Zephyrus, Eurus did sense it. Sensing he was the last windigo in existence, and that his time was almost certainly limited. But, for the time he had left, he could do plenty. What didn’t do the job at range, could be managed up close.

Especially after he sensed, through his tether to the void, what had been lost within the abyss before the portal closed. His scheming brother finally proved useful for more than just bringing forth the eastern wind.

Trudging through the surf, Eurus finally made landfall, enormous feet creating massive sinkholes in the beach and freezing the surf in place as the over half kilometer tall monstrosity towered over his comparatively tiny opposition. He made to stomp on the two downed flyers when Battra grabbed Irys and rolled them out of the way, flopping across the streets on torn wings to get clear of the gargantuan foot that came crushing down as a dropped mountain. The explosion of debris rocked over the both of them as Anguirus came whirling around in a thunder ball, smashing into Eurus’ knee and pushing the foot backwards.

When Irys and Battra got to their feet, the moth having helped the bat up, both were clearly well worn. The latter was missing several horns and a leg, and the former’s wing membranes could be favorably compared to tattered, frayed curtains hanging off her fingers.

Then, like a pin drop moment in time, all of that changed when several spheres went flying over their heads. The projectiles, each about the size of a small car, struck the shoreline and combusted, napalm growing across the pier and shore with increasing rapidity with follow-up salvos. Irys perked up as Battra chirped in mild confusion. The Guardian Moth could swear she heard what sounded like someone rapid-fire hacking up loogies or spitballs whilst firing the napalm grenades.

Megalon’s familiar, trilling call echoed over the storm in a prolonged utterance declaring war. Having put his compatriots down, the cyborg eagerly whirled his remaining hand-drill in a taunt as he charged forward with it extended in a ridiculous manner; still spitting napalm the whole way. He rushed past Irys and Battra, waving his stump of an arm briefly and chirping a hello before resuming his shrieking war cry. Getting airborne, the cyborg flew up to and peppered Eurus’ body with thunderbolts and latched onto his face; ramming his drill into the empty eye socket of the demon. It failed to do any real damage, but it did get the giant’s focus and ire.

He was grabbed, squeezed, and sent rocketing back to the ground like a comet after Eurus blasted him away. He was back up and doggedly charging the windigo within a few moments, heedless to his bodily damage and sprinting like a homicidal angry lemming.

Anguirus barked as he ran over to Battra and Irys, the two Guardian Beasts looking at the fire. Lea roared at the two siblings before getting airborne herself, flying up to fire her prism beams directly into Eurus’ other eye. Her own body had mana, much like the Guardian Beasts, and whilst her normal spells and thus protections weren’t working, she had plenty to offer. Plus, observation had clued them into one thing.

Eurus might have been a demon, but to manifest in the physical world he needed a physical body. And a physical body could be blinded. And man nor giant alike had a hard time focusing when two giant angry bugs were crawling over and stinging their faces.

But through the mayhem the two insectoid kaiju caused, Eurus could still detect things without true sight. One of the very few things that truly gave him pause. Harmony’s magic, a lot of it somehow, moving right for him.

Some in their powered up forms, most looking like mundane humans, but their presence somehow generating a power all unto itself as they fearlessly charged despite their weakness. The fact they pressed on despite the loss of magic was proof enough of their worthiness as Bearers and of their new fate in the sirens and Retainer.

Courage led by the fear-disrupting Element of Laughter as the ground beneath them gave way. A mesh of vines and root work surging up from underfoot to literally allow the group to surf downtown to get closer. A blast of shredding air was sent directly at the party, but Battra Lea flew into the path and took the hit. Her mana based magic dampened the blow enough for the kaiju to avoid being thrown back, lowering her head to catch the airborne mass of vines. It landed atop her horned brow and wrapped around it, allowing the kaiju to swoop about and fly forth as the steed to the party. Each of the Bearers holding hands, with three sirens joined in hands around them and a Retainer behind them.

All singing, all uniting their powers together. The Elements creating the surging tide, with the Retainer bolstering it and the sirens complimenting it. Hymnia’s lullaby to banish evil was not born directly of Harmony’s making, but as a force of benevolence and bonds it couldn’t be anything but traces of her. And with the three born of windigo sin all emulating the copying the magic they were exposed to the most, that of the Elements, it couldn’t do anything but help it.

Eurus wasted no time splitting the skyline with a shriek, like an avalanche of shattering glass as wind and frost barreled at the ground. Only for two forms to get in the way and block it. The fires at the portside had been completely absorbed, fully restoring and bolstering the guardians meant to be fueled by the one with flames. That firstborn Guardian Beast, Anguirus, stood shoulder to shoulder with the last found, Irys. The symbol for ‘Eta’ stenciled across Irys’ restored wings was shining brightly, complimenting a dim, but present flickering illumination across her brother’s form.The echo of the emblem of the ‘Alpha’ beast shown back at Eurus from Anguirus’ crown of horns.

And the wind blasts and snow just ceased to be between them. Not even a residual amount of dark magic laden wind made it through to menace the group of Element Bearers with two bodyguards surrounding them in their aura.

The glimmering brilliance atop the floral mass across Battra's brow shone like a sun and combined. A brilliant, rainbow alicorn made of pure magic and song grew in size to exceed that of the kaiju themselves. Swirling around and in support of it, the finned and fluked body of a similarly hued mermare engendered by the siren melody. And yet, grand as it was, it seemed like something was still missing.

Eurus bellowed at the opposition and raised a hand to the sky, darkening with intensifying clouds as the waters around them all turned to ice. Streaks of lightning assailed his face to no effect, but it did work to briefly obscure the windigo's line of sight. A sneer and a swat by the demon sent the origin of the lightning, a metallic horn atop a cyborg kaiju, flying. Their part done, Megalon hurtled through the air but managed to break his fall by rapidly beating his wings and slowing himself down. By the time he hit the ground in human form, the bruised cyborg was cracking a grin and shooting the party atop Battra a thumbs up.

Atop the floral mass, only two left were not singing. In fact, they felt briefly frozen in time in the midst of it all, focused on each other.

“Such an alliance, never before seen,” Celestia looked to her faithful student and beamed proudly, “And it was ultimately your doing.”

“I just.. Did the best I could,” Twilight sighed, looking forward into the enormity that lay before them. Eurus was reacting to their threat, but, if he was capable of it, he didn’t seem afraid despite suffering such damage already.

“It was the best I could do,” Her head tilted downwards, remembering all the pain and the strife that had led up to this moment.

The kidnapping, the battles, the frayed nerves, revelations, and so much conflict. Junior, Lea, her human friends, Gigan, X, the sirens. And even if she knew of their blame and was not supportive of them, the fates of Wallflower and the other Twilight. Not to say the least of all the devastation to the town. All this, because three and then four demons got their claws into two exploitable lackeys; and unleashed it all on everyone.

And for what? What did they ever do the Windigos? This wasn’t revenge, it was just pure spite and malice. If such forces of destruction existed….

She looked to her friends giving it their all, and to her very empty, broken necklace.

It seemed like such twisted irony. In the 11th hour, after she helped get everyone together; that she’d be the one unable to help.

But a hand perking up her chin said otherwise, “You got once dire enemies to fight side by side, helped bring more and more to stand together. And you, you made friends with who’d be your foes, Twilight.”

Celestia beamed warmly, “And that is more about the bonds and magic in them, than any crystal could help you with.”

Twilight let the smile spread to her, even if her brow remained lowered. Half of the Bearers still lacked their transformed states, and their Elements had dimmed. Not the mention her totally powerless form, “Wouldn’t hurt to have it now though.”

“No, it wouldn’t… but, you also showed this old teacher of yours a new lesson,” Celestia beamed as the empty space for the Element of Magic on her neck glimmered a bit brighter when she offered her hand, “The Element doesn’t make the Bearer, just brings out what was already; always, there… Maybe two halves can make a whole?”

The same empty spot for the Element flickered on Twilight’s collar.

Twilight felt eyes upon her and looked at each. The Bearers, Gaea, the sirens, each was glancing back at her mid-focus. Each made a chain to offer a hand.

Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Magic, Eventide Hymn of the Sirens, and friends to all present, took the chance at a simple math problem. What would happen when two Elementless Bearers of the same type joined a chorus with a bunch of empowered Bearers, a millennia old gestalt pony-turned-human of an alicorn, a Wood Nymph, and three sea sorceresses also turned human who were also a millennia old in a different way?

If such forces of destruction and or evil existed, surely an opposite had to as well in creation. It was time to see what they could drum up.

Instantly the magic doubled, then tripled. The siren magic copied and spread what it was exposed to, and now a reconstituted Element of Magic was in play between the two alicorns. It was like a boost to those seemingly lacking anymore magic, restarting what had been lost. The magic flowed from the sirens to Gaea and then to the Bearers who'd overtaxed themselves earlier, each lacking the state returned to their empowered forms instantly. The combined Elemental magic, Creation magic, merged and multiplied upon itself every moment. The ethereal form of an alicorn encircled with a mermare coming into full existed before merging. Eurus gawked as the glowing mass exceeded himself in size and instantly banished away the storm clouds. The brilliant mass was near impossible to look at directly, but all could hear it. A united chorus that rang with wind chimes, upon a brilliant form carrying a pronged horn.

Not Harmony, but something new. A glimpse of something else different and yet the same in power.

Grand King Ghidorah's final moments were a glimpse of Destruction, and he took comfort in it in whatever strange way was possible for him.

Eurus' final moments were a glimpse of Creation, and he screamed.

Across the city, a recovered Monster X and Godzilla watched from either side in a mix of awe and pride. Flash Sentry woke up and gazed upon it from the window of the parked van. Gigan stood in the midst of two unconscious forms, letting a smile creep over his face.

And Creation and Extinction gazed upon the event with pride and quiet in either.

Eurus was lifted off his feet and shrieked. For the very first time, he spoke in an articulate way as he was blasted towards the sky. He looked at himself, as if horrified. And for the briefest of instants, the monstrosity of form he bore changed into something majestic. An echo of bygone beneficence called out a name in hatred before he joined the hereafter.

“GROOOOOGAAAAAAAARR!”

The light fades, the snow was gone, and so were the monsters. Anguirus’ ringing cry was shot into the heavens as Battra, Irys, and Megalon joined in. Glimmering radiance fell from the sky and upon all involved as the kaiju ran out of energy and de-morphed to human form. Battra gasped at her torn ribs and broken arm, side effects of missing or busted legs in her true form, were knit back together. Monster X breathed in deeply as the various cuts and bruises across his body were healed away. Godzilla sighed contently as his scars vanished from sight again and his body felt itself restored. Megalon, for his part, was cheerfully running up the beach line, waving his now restored arm with the metal components even back.

Gigan looked at the plating on his own forearm patch itself back up, passively wondering how magic knew what ‘counted’ as him or not before remembering his motto. Magic just made no sense, stop questioning it.

The sound of two breaths did however catch his attention and he groaned before reaching down to pick two bodies up.

=======

The sight would have been comical had it not happened after such a calamitous confrontation. Five kaiju turned human, two alicorns and a unicorn also turned human, three sirens also turned human, and six actual humans but transformed into altered states; all slumped around several tables and pulled-together-chairs. Immaculately, one single restaurant had managed to survive the devastation that had leveled a huge section of the town. It was again a thankful reminder that most people had wisely cleared out due to Gigan screaming at them whilst transformed that initial time, let alone the fiasco they no doubt saw at the parking garage roof when they destroyed Notus. Or the half kilometer tall Eurus stomping around. They'd stopped to search and found not a soul, injured or worse, in the rubble. Even the animals had wisely wigged out when the storms blew in.

Which left them all here, half collapsed inside a miraculously intact Waffle House. Rainbow Dash was slumped backwards onto a chair on account of her wings getting in the way, nursing a glass of milk. Irys was scarfing down thawed hotdogs and bacon to a degree one would wonder where a lean woman like her put it all. Sunset Shimmer looked like she was fighting to stay awake with another cup of coffee. Anguirus and Rarity had flat out passed out, foreheads slumped onto the table. Sonata, back to her typical self, was humming a tune whilst having fun with the leftover crayons and crosswords. Megalon was half-asleep whilst sampling various sodas, as Lea proceeded to dump sugar pack after sugar pack into some juice. Aria and X hadn't let go of one another since they got reunited, occupying a bench to themselves as Fluttershy came over with a waffle plate. The source was from the busied kitchen, where part of the posse had managed to summon the strength and experience to get the wares working again.

Or, technically speaking, Pinkie had the strength and vigor to keep going like a giant energizer bunny. The rest like Gaea, Applejack, Adagio, and Celestia were just kinda following her lead due to being way more worn out. In a sight that was bound to be surreal to anyone from Terra, Godzilla was the one acting as the waiter. Evidently it had become a running gag to send him out to pick up orders from the guard once everypony figured out how much he could haul.

It was no small miracle given how worn out everyone, well, everyone except Pinkie Pie, was that they noticed someone missing.

"Are you sure he's okay?" Gaea Everfree muttered as she gave Megalon another soda. Gloriosa hadn't powered down yet, like the rest of them. Giving a surreal sight to the Bearers as the 'Tree Angel' walking around with an apron on as the image of Godzilla waiting tables might be to a Terran.

"The magic wave worked on machinery, somehow," Adagio added as she stepped around her..(girlfriend? They still had some things to work out), to avoid hitting her with the hardlight magic fins still attached to her, "Bolts-For-Brains reported in, he's fine. Just didn't want to teleport considering..."

Gloriosa, Gaea Everfree still, understood, but remained silent for the moment, double checking on Sonata and how the blue siren was up on her feet and in high spirits to make sure this wasn’t somehow a dream. Last time she saw Sonata talking and walking unassisted was before this whole fiasco with frost demons happened, and it was almost as surreal as the fact she and everyone else who had one were still in enchanted forms.

"So uh…" Applejack muttered as she came out with another flapjack plate, privy to how she still had large equine ears to flick as she did just that, "Is the off switch for these powers stuck or something? Cus everybody is still lit up like fireworks."

Several groans of acknowledgement followed, confirming that nobody could power down. This was something Twilight was still puzzling hard at, as she looked at her own reflection in a cup of tea.

"Considering variables, faithful student?"

“You didn’t happen to get any glimpses of future sight when you slept recently to tell us what to do, have you?” Twilight groaned slightly as her now longer, equine-like ears flopped down slightly.

Celestia sighed and patted at her shoulder, “When I get those glimpses, they rarely give strong details. And up until today I thought myself void of magic.”

Celestia considered her own magical enchantments, “I had thought myself void of worthiness for my Elements as well. Seems this trip was mentally illuminating for a lot of us.”

“Any chance of nodding off to see if there’s something we’re supposed to do?”

“Considering you’re asking me this after I downed a cup of coffee Young Miss Pie made me?” Celestia deadpanned as she wiggled her mug in her fingers, having gotten dexterity down over the past days, “Not likely. Besides, hopefully not jinxing it when I say this, the danger has passed. How did you ‘power down’ prior?”

“Usually it just seemed to level out and dissipate after a while when it happened after playing music,” Rarity tiredly groaned as she rubbed at her temple before glancing down at her glimmering necklace and the Element of Generosity, “Though we didn’t have these back then.”

“Or after settling things with a certain She-Demon, you all at least had an Element of Magic with you at the time,” Sunset Shimmer muttered whilst rubbing at the back of her head, puzzling at her own necklace.

The lack of Element and yet still brilliant glow off Twilight and Celestia became all the more noticeable to the group paying close attention.

“Maybe but…” Twilight puzzled some more, able to still palpably ‘feel’ the Element crystal’s tether even as she remembered vividly it being lost to the void, “The fact I could use that crystal at all confirms the Elements here are indeed exactly like those in Equestria. Which, given by all accounts they’ve been here for years, means any doubts magic was native to this world or not can be put to rest… But, maybe the missing Element means turning it off is more difficult now without a complete set?”

“Well, I guess I could get used to being taller eventually,” Gaea Everfree sighed as she touched passively at the coloration around her eyes, “Don’t think I can pass this off as a tattoo however… But why would the sirens and I remain like this anyways, we’re not Element Bearers.”

“Any theories for that, ‘Eventide’?” Aria deadpanned as she leaned into X nonetheless but perked a brow at her honorary podmate.

“Bearer or not, you do seem tethered now,” Celestia chimed in, “And Gloriosa’s position clearly was related to the Elements. It took the Elements to destroy the windigos, but the benign song magic of the sirens and that of Gaea Everfree are clearly related to it. Perhaps some great act beyond defeating a great evil known is in order?”

Everyone in the diner paused before looking right at the former alicorn, and then outside at any last indication of some fifth windigo they somehow missed and unanimously prayed didn’t exist.

Birds were chirping and the snow that remained just continued melting across the broken town.

Twilight spoke for all of them when she audibly sighed in relief, “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about that… I’m working on a hypothesis but-”

She looked at each of the siren’s necklaces with a knowing consideration, “I need a moment to know for sure.”

“Well, if you need them for a test, I trust you with it, Eventide Hymn,” Adagio Dazzle shrugged, “You got us into this situation to begin with and got us this far, I trust you to get us past it.”

“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?” Twilight managed to channel the same lowbrow deadpanning Aria had when she spoke.

“Awww naaw! As far as we’re concerned, you’re always part of the pod now!” Sonata Dusk chirped happily as she hugged the purple semi-alicorn from behind and perched her head atop Twilight’s, rubbing her cheek to the back of Twilight’s hardlight horn, “Oooh now that I can sing again, we gotta try some numbers! Your friends can pile in too and we’ll try not to outdo-each other! We’re not topping the top that we all blasted my uncle into smithereens but we can try!”

Adagio paused after getting a ding on her phone and held up a hand, “Hold your fins for a moment you lot, there’s something else we have-”

She paused upon hearing the door open and cursed under her breath about speaking of the devil to spur them to appear. Princess Twilight Sparkle felt the arms of Sonata, once cheerfully hugging her around the neck, flinching and freezing. The siren slipped back, almost like she was hiding.

For the second time in the month, Adagio had to be restrained from lunging at the face of Twilight Sparkle; only this time it was herself holding the siren back as Gigan held the human. Wallflower Blush was also present, reaching towards her friend as if to comfort; only for the human Twilight to reflexively flinch away. Whilst she didn’t broadcast that she’d gotten a flash of turmoil and terror looking at the face of her friend after having first become conscious with her hand rammed into their gut, almost everyone could perceive it with how her face contorted and shivered. Three individuals especially could perceive how much it had affected her.

Those three with red gems on their necks, which could see the green haze emanating off Twilight and Wallflower both. Two of them, Aria and Adagio, on pure instinct and familial tether, flanked and got between the two newcomers and Sonata. The fact that Sonata was nonetheless still approaching them was honestly the most telling part.

Gigan glanced between the two troublemakers who started this whole mess before looking at the incoming sirens, his expression and Adagio's unreadable as the distance closed. Nobody in the diner said anything when at last, the victim and perpetrators were less than a meter apart. Gigan slowly rewound his cables and stepped back in a way from the two humans with the same caution someone might a live bomb. Each of the Bearers and plenty of the kaiju were exchanging looks, some cautiously holding their elements. Possibly in case something necessitated their use, but more likely just to have them at the ready on impulse.

Sonata Dusk's face quivered and her frown was small, but all the more striking. Wallflower and the human Twilight looked away, unable to meet her gaze for a time with shame clearly stenciled on their faces. It seemed like a full minute passed before they finally had the courage to look up, prompted by the audible inhale the siren took.

Sonata Dusk closed her eyes and seemed to almost whisper a slow melody. Nobody but her cousin and half-sister could discern the lyrics when it grabbed everyone's attention. It was a simple tune, one a child might come up with. In this case a child sitting on a reef on a completely inconsequential day, just passing the time and trying to emulate the same kind of musical skill an aunt she barely had the time to remember, and a mother she never remembered apparently had. Pinkie and Megalon remembered it from one of her murmurings whilst incapacitated and half-asleep. Something she did for comfort.

Unseen to any but Adagio and Aria, and grabbing their attention whilst it happened, the green haze of negativity and dread that had been permeating from the two humans was pulled away and into the subtle glow within Sonata's gem. Locked away and neutralized.

Sonata opened her eyes again, her face neutral. Not the bubbly grin when she was gleefully adopting Twilight earlier, nor the broken and pained visage so many had seen her with until recently,, "... I was once a monster. I hurt people. Some of them had it coming, but a lot of them didn't... Now I have to remember that even when I smile."

Battra caught an aside glance by Megalon and X, as Junior did Gigan, and Anguirus did Irys. All three defenders silently looked to one another as if signaling this observation.

"I know I seem like the bubbly one, but I'm not stupid..." Sonata considered her necklace and all the power it represented, "I got another chance even if some people don't think I deserve it. And I got it while still having this... When you took it away, sometimes I wondered if it was karma catching up to me. Now that I have it back..."

Her fingers curled around her gemstone, her heart, and she took in a deep breath, mustering up a lot of courage to face her fears. The two faces of her fears.

"I'm keeping it so I can do what I can to, maybe make up for what I did once. Apparently the ones I wronged have been gone for 1000 years," Sonata chuckled hollowly, shaking her head, "Who'da thought? Me, aging that well?.... I'm older than my mom, grandma, and aunt ever were. I don't know how much longer I'm going to live, and I can't ask those I hurt what I can do to make up for it... But..."

Her smile was tiny just like her frown was earlier, and yet the power of it shot right through all in her audience.

"Best I can do is be better than I was. For all of us, to be better than we were," siren, kaiju, pony, human; she might as well be talking for all of them.

"I can't ask them to forgive me, and that's gonna motivate me for the rest of my life," Sonata shook her head, "So I'm not going to say I forgive you, so you'll remember for the rest of yours.... Because I never want to see you again."

Wallflower Blush and Twilight Sparkle said nothing, no objections, no remarks on how they had been deceived, no statements on how literal demons had been truly the ones most responsible. Zephyrus having been the principal cause of it all didn't mean they weren't responsible either, and everyone knew that. They themselves included.

The fact they just shut up and listened was one of the main reasons Adagio Dazzle and Aria Blaze's fists relaxed as they reached up to put their hands on the youngest siren's shoulders in support.

"Just go away," Aria Blaze grunted, pointed but not growling, "Don't try to make it up to us or to her, don't try and apologize with gestures. You can apologize by just going and staying away."

"Leave us, leave magic, alone. We don't want revenge," Adagio took in a deep breath and sighed like she was letting go of a heavy weight, "We don't want anything from you. Take my sister's advice, and do better. But do it away from us."

Wallflower Blush and Twilight Sparkle looked at one another, the latter finally able to meet the former's gaze and knowing the siren as the reason why. A subtle nod moved between them. Even without the sirens making them swear to it, neither one of them wanted anything to do with magic ever again.

"I thought... I was like her, and that would make me a hero," Twilight said as her eyes turned to her counterpart, whose gaze widened at the focus, "... But I really can realize now how different we were despite having the same face. Now though..."

She looked to the very siren whose heart she had been literally wearing above her own for weeks. Sonata Dusk almost reflexively stiffened but light of the current situation and the support of her podmates helped her keep her nerve.

Twilight bowed herself slightly to the very siren she’d stood before in a completely different context in what felt like it was so long ago, "I hope I can be like you, one day. I just can’t have magic to help me do it. Just a friend to."

Wallflower Blush's hand placed itself into Twilight's, "She's not the only one with a lot of mistakes... I just have to keep learning from all of them."

Neither said thank you, because both didn't want to impose that upon their victim to accept it. But the point was made nonetheless and everyone agreed to it. Gigan stepped aside to let the doorway be open and the two humans who had been monsters in the thrall of another, stepped out for the long walk home so they could live again.

The moments they left however, it wasn't discussion within the diner that spurred attention. In the instant that the sirens decided where they would stand from here on out, glimmering light connected Siren, Retainer, and Bearer. It started at the last and, as if compelled into action by seeing the change in the seaborne witches; it flowed with an increasing tether.

========

Unseen by the mortals, a goddess smiled upon the changes the times had brought. The same strength in numbers the sirens enjoyed being altogether and the Bearers experienced being in closer proximity to each other were now tied together with the Retainer to the Elements and Element of Magic being the connective bridge. The sirens were sired by Grogar's lieutenants, but they were hers now more than ever. Years ago, the first Bearer of Empathy and last Retainer had made her friend promise that her daughter and successor would never be alone. At long last, Harmony could feel she had succeeded in both that and other matters.

Now... if the sharp mind at work for one of them could figure out one little-

She saw Princess Twilight's eyes light up with knowing and the goddess didn't fight her smile growing into a grin. Leaving them to their devices, she set about to her own task. Namely, what someone else had been up to...

=========

Seeing how much the sirens had changed and the effect it had on the Elements gave Twilight the eureka moment she’d been looking for.

"I-I think I got it!" All eyes looked to Twilight as she piped up and continued to address the question on a lot of their tongues, "Why the power won’t go away! Princess Celestia, remember what you once told me about light and dark magic in the forces involved?"

"Thaaaat dark magic isn't evil in itself and both can be abused?" Rainbow Dash of all people was the one to chime in before sheepishly shrugging her shoulders, "What? We got the rundown on that between Sensei having me and AJ going through drills."

Twilight perked up with her eyes and ears, "Oh, she taught you that too? Good good! I was hoping she'd correct that common misconception when you all started learning!"

"Well, she is the best magic teacher in history!" Fluttershy smiled happily as she petted a hard light created bunny sitting on her lap.

Celestia giggled and rubbed the back of her head, "You were saying Twilight?"

"Well! The windigos all festered and propagated the exact kind of emotions that dark magic can use, just exaggerated and abused into causing evil. And they used this to pull people and places apart, both in the past and now with this gigantic conflict we all got pulled into. Like reigniting old strife into hatred-"

Gigan frowned after feeling phantom sensations of rushing into a battle at the pier and targeting Godzilla with fury.

"propagating fear into hate filled vengeance."

Aria Blaze forced her hand to relax after remembering how she'd grabbed the other Twilight by the neck with it.

"Making pain so great it turned into blind spite."

Both Lea and X found themselves shifting in their places with regret pooling inside their minds.

"But-" Twilight managed to cut through some of the dour thoughts, "They might have unleashed all of that and caused some mistakes on our parts, but we were the ones who self corrected to fix the damage they did to all of us. Maybe we can also fix the damage they left behind?"

Anguirus noticed her line of sight pointing out the front door into the destroyed scenery that stretched on in every direction as far as they could see. If he was reading what she was putting down right, he could admit being impressed at least with the will.

"You mean.. use the light show on the town?"

"Dark and light magic are not propelled by good or evil, just using your emotions and considerations towards others to fuel the magic. How we used it was opposite of the windigos and that's how all of us, not just the Bearers, resisted and fought back against the demons. If they were nothing but unbridled destruction, and we’re the opposite; what does that make us?" She shrugged but smiled nonetheless, "What I'm saying is... I think I get the magic a little more after seeing how much it affected everybody. Light and dark is in good and evil, its creation and destruction. We’ve seen that kind of magic create something better by healing both the heart and the body of living beings. What if we used that magic on a physical wound on the world? If increasing use of the Elements and other magic had already begun reawakening some of the latent but dormant magic of this world, what if we gave it a huge kick-start of specifically creation based magic? If we gave it everything we got, it might work.”

“Everythin’ we got ‘ey?” Applejack hummed as she rubbed at her chin, “So putting all our magic out there to get it working.”

Twilight nodded, “It might overtax our magic, for how long I don’t know. It might burn out your magical transformations or powers like it had for awhile in the fight…”

Her ears flopped down at a small realization, “And with no Element of Magic here and Celestia and I having to go back to Equestria eventually…”

“We might lose our abilities. For a while or,” Rarity left the thread hanging to hope Twilight would answer.

The alicorn sheepishly but somewhat regretfully frowned and shook her head, “Working in theory for now, no way of telling for sure.”

Rarity and the other Bearers considered it for a moment, and literally only a moment, before Generosity spoke for all of them, “Well then, what are we waiting for?”

“Talking to animals and making some is nice, but I’ve always been able to do the first, in a way,” Fluttershy smiled sweetly.

“Ah’ can just hit the gym more times a week if I feel like I wanna lift more if things go away for good,” Applejack shrugged.

“Trying to be the top sprinter as is would kiiinda be cheating anyways with no Off-Button,” Rainbow Dash chuckled and scratched at her head.

“I got used to losing some magic once, I can chance losing it again,” Sunset Shimmer said as she put an arm around Applejack and Fluttershy, “Besides, I think I’ve learned a lot about empathy as is.”

“I suppose designing anything with gems as big as the ones I tend to whip up would require me trying to make someone the size of Mr. Anguirus a 3 piece suit anyways,” Rarity giggled.

“Besides, if I wanted explosives, I could just visit an armory!” Pinkie Pie giggled in a way that caused Gigan to shoot her a glance and move back a pace.

“You lot really would bet your magic on fixing up this town?” Aria Blaze noted with a perked brow.

“Of course! It’s our home!” Pinkie Pie keened.

“Even if some of us aren’t exactly from around here,” Sunset Shimmer sniggered before sighing contently, “About fifteen years in Canterlot versus four here. Time doesn’t always equal familiarity. Sometimes I feel if I went back to Equestria I’d be walking on my hind hooves.”

“You were when we found you, remember?” Princess Celestia teased with a smirk and caused the Element of Empathy’s face to redden.

“Well then, if we’re all in agreement. Let’s set out front so we don’t shoot the roof or something,” Twilight Sparkle sighed as she got up from the table and started to lead the Elements, Celestia included, outside.

“And where do you think you’re going, Eventide?”

Twilight’s pace stopped and she turned her head when Adagio’s voice chased after her. The other two sirens and Gaea had similarly formed up behind the lead siren, though they all bore intrigued expressions making it clear all were wondering what Adagio was doing.

“If I recall right, you and Princess Celestia don’t have your crystal anymore. You intend to fuel this spell with your own magic,” Adagio huffed before narrowing her brow slightly, trying to look hardened but clearly more concerned than she hoped to let on, “What’ll that do to you?”

“Frankly? No clue,” Twilight Sparkle shrugged, “But I gotta try and help now don’t I? I promise, one way or another we’ll still hash out a way to get you and your pod back to Equestria and to Mako Island-”

“I’m not leaving,” All three sirens said in unison before pausing, eyes widened as they realized their sibling and cousins had all spoken the same thing.

“What?!...” was spoken-

“They need all the help they can get!...” in-

“No you’re not doing it!...” threeway stereo.

“No-no! I’ll help them out! Song magic can help propagate their magic, like how we helped them destroy that big bastard,” Adagio volunteered.

“Yeah, and I’m the one who wouldn’t be in line for the throne anyways!” Aria countered with a finger pointed at each of her cousins, “I wouldn’t even want to be a queen, so I’m not leaving anyways!”

“Hey! Summer’s coming up and Ms. Daisy already agreed to hire me as a lifeguard! I’m unemployed if I don’t fix that camp and town up!” Sonata whined as she shook in place.

The sirens argued back and forth before all three were coiled up in vines and gently pulled off their feet, Gaea Everfree having a bead of sweet roll down her face as she giggled awkwardly and carried them out to join the Element Bearers.

“My magic seems to help boost all of yours anyways, mind if I pitched in? I can make due if we burn this all out,” Gaea Everfree said as she put the sirens down right next to Twilight.

“Look!” Adagio Dazzle yelped as she spun around to face the purple former-alicorn, “... I… we… Yes, we do wanna see Mako one day. Maybe soon as a visit, and we really appreciate the royal pardon, Twiligh- Eventide-.. Princess.”

“What my cousin is saying,” Aria interjected as she shrugged her shoulders, “It was pretty impressive you lot were willing to risk all your magic for this… The Mako we tried to get back to has been gone for 1,000 years. Anybody we wanted to know or had a grudge against is also gone.”

“Auntie Hymnia raised us better anyways, about time we lived up to that,” Sonata chirped, “We like it here anyways!”

“And.. you’d know best of any of these Element Bearers, Eventide,” Adagio said as she offered a hand, “Sirens sing best in a chorus. If these two and I wanna join in for the best odds, will you have us?”

Pinkie Pie said it best as she zipped up in front of them and rapidly shook Adagio’s hand, loaned Earth Pony strength similar to, though not quite to the level of Applejack, partially lifting the siren off the ground and shaking her.

Soon; Bearer, Siren, Retainer, Equestrian and Human; all gathered together outside the simple diner and felt their tethers. The song began and the magic pooled, building up more and more as a beautiful tapestry of rainbow hued brilliance. As more and more was pooled into it, the winds changed and one could perceive a melody like the wind chimes brought forth across the breeze.

Putting everything into it was not as strenuous as one might think, perhaps being so because they weren’t fighting back against a nearly mile tall monstrosity whilst doing so. It was almost willful on command once they’d all joined together. Each element working off each other, the presence of the retainer helping to bolster the magic, and the siren chorus working to spread it forth like a wave.

And, as planned, as prepared for, the brilliance and enhancements about each of them faded. Magical fins, hooves, wings, and flora dissipated into light as the magic gathered together like a second sun above them.

It flew into the sky before spreading in all directions and all places, tiny embers of radiance filtering down from above. The chorus singers' faces split with wide smiles and dazzled eyes as the magic saturated the world around them. Broken concrete started to knit itself back together, torn off chunks of buildings moving off the ground and situating themselves back into place, the town starting to come alive and restore itself.

Even with their powers seemingly gone, the relief all of the heroines felt was palpable. Some running down the streets or chasing each other whilst seeing places they knew being put back together and greenery returning to the frostbitten land.

Having seen more than their fair share of destruction by their and others’ abilities, seeing the opposite was truly impressive for the giants in attendance.

Godzilla watched on proudly as he took his foot off a small mass that had been wiggling under it, letting a loose chunk of rock free from under his boot to go off and rejoin its fellows. Crossing his arms, the monster king found himself flanked by his own fellows and standing off against four others that had gathered together. All seven assembled kaiju, three on one side and four on the other, stood face to face.

It was the Hunters who moved first, silently communicating amongst themselves before X stood forward for them as a whole.

"Beneficent and understandable as some of our actions were, a lot of this is on us and I don't think any of us are ever going to excuse our part in this," X stated plainly and truthfully.

"Kaiju are rarely subtle, from Terra or otherwise," Battra Lea frowned deeply, even as she held herself up firmly, "Any of us could react poorly under the right circumstances. I doubt any of us could protest otherwise."

"If there's retribution you need, you can ask for it...." X bowed his head and shoulders slightly, the other hunters following suit, "I wouldn't have my life again with Aria in it without your help. And, I think we've also gotten attached to this world. I for one enjoy seeing it back together."

The three Defenders exchanged a few glances of their own, before the silent vote was cast unanimously.

"I think... All of us can agree a lot of things have changed since we all found ourselves here. Equestria has done a lot of good for me and my friends," Godzilla said calmly as he released tensions he'd still been holding on as the magic from the heroines continued to saturate the world around and help him feel so much more uplifted, "And I think we should follow those two bands' example and put the past behind us.”

Anguirus grunted in approval before interjecting, “If you want to make a vow, you can start by promising not to ever cause trouble on this world like you did on Terra."

"Nor for you lot," Gigan stated as he rose up and crossed an arm with a clenched fist over his chest, "I fought you all on Terra because of someone controlling me and my team. I used to excuse what I'd done because of that, but frost demon influence or no influence; this little war showed me I can make some bad decisions all on own, intentions be damned... For my sake and for the sake of some others I care about, I don't want to be like that anymore."

Monster X nodded and repeated the gesture, "By orders or wishes or heat of the moment choices, I promise I will never fight any of you again."

Anguirus' eye caught the gaze of someone who had once been an enemy and now was instead his little sister, "... Irys?"

"I lost my first flock.. and I found a better one. By proxy or because I like them too, that new flock includes some folks that live here. Folks I know you would never hurt," Irys nodded affirmatively and tapped her fist on her chest in emulation of her teammates, "I solemnly swear I will never try and bite a chunk out any other of your group ever again."

Battra Lea and Godzilla Junior both couldn't resist slightly lowering their brow, feeling some phantom sensations in a twitch of her shoulder and his elbow. Still, they could appreciate the sentiment.

Megalon stepped forward and raised his hand to begin the gesture, only to get promptly grabbed by both his brother and Lea to keep his hand down.

"Hey, but I got to make a vow too!" The youngest cyborg complained.

"You literally didn't do anything but play babysitter most of this venture!" Gigan griped as he put his brother's saluting arm down.

Lea patted his head pleasantly, "Trust me, I messed this whole mess up more than you ever did."

Megalon whined, spurring Godzilla to repeat a motion he had seen both humans and some equestrians do by slapping his hand over his face. Anguirus lightly elbowed Irys and whispered to her ear.

"If you're all staying here and promising not to cause trouble, just follow his example if you have any questions. I promise I'll visit sometime later."

"Please do, if we're moving on ahead we may not see each other as much; but separation bites worse than I used to."

============

In the void that once housed one of the worst living calamities that Equestria had ever seen, a being magnitudes more powerful even in their diminished state roamed the near infinite space. Even without much matter to exist in a way comprehensible to most mortals, Bagan had little issue navigating the space. This realm was clearly the handiwork of a deity, but it was perhaps mildly perplexing that it took them as long as it did to find what they were looking for. Like a single bead of glass amongst grains of sand across an infinite beach, the appearance and properties for the Element of Magic work differently than the void that surrounded it but the inherent composition was the same.

Which meant...

"I thought I would find you here," a voice like wind chimes hummed.

Bagan turned, their impossibly huge form looking even more so as the positively minuscule Element sat on their upturned palm. Harmony was before them, equal in size and grandeur as she bore an expression unreadable to even another deity beyond clearly being deep in thought.

"I would like to ask what you intend to do with that," Creation said as she tilted her head slightly, letting the beads dangling from her hair ring quietly as they shifted against each other.

"You created this realm, and the windigos," Bagan stated without question, feeling the presence of Harmony's handiwork all around them despite the glaring difference.

A portal to images, past or present, similar to the screen in Harmony's realm opened up between them. Bagan's claws glimmered with the spell, copying the magic they'd seen Harmony using all this time. They'd picked up on a few things it seemed.

The vision showed Eurus' last moments. That brief instant before they cried out and the Elements at last allowed them peace and an end. In those fleeting moments the emaciated, corpse-like visage changed to fullness, like a body rotting in reverse to become whole. This was not a monster, but something for a far different purpose. Possibly even a benign one at one point.

Creation frowned visibly, not from scorn but regret, but she made no move to deny it, "Grogar was pure destruction, once for benevolent purposes and then later he lost his way... But he never created anything. Even at his most monstrous, all he could do was corrupt. Eurus, Zephyrus, Boreas, and Notus were once very different. They truly died a long time ago... That heinous magic Grogar deceived and corrupted them with..."

"Every last one of the monstrosities he pitted against you and your champions, in the end they were all your creations or their descendants."

"I create, I do not control. The four beings I made perished a long time ago, and this was their grave. Grogar bastardized their echo to spite me, as he has every other one he twisted," Harmony frowned as she looked around the void surrounding them.

The complexity of emotions she no doubt was feeling were understandable to her audience.

"They were important to you once... And then you had to bear witness to them trying to kill everything."

Harmony tilted her head slightly the other way, looking a bit closer to the dark form of the divine dragon, "... You feel the same way about humans, don't you? When you started to feel they were beyond the event horizon. That is why you see civilization and sapience as a cursed mistake, don't you?"

Her words dug deep. Bagan paused for a spell, before walking past her, treading on empty space as they dutifully approached the portal back to her realm and Zenith.

"Perhaps at one point, your windigos also didn't think they were so far gone," Bagan grunted before looking to the Element of Magic, "The events of this war have confirmed much to me. I have a plan for this to never happen again."

"And does that plan entail what you glimpsed in the future just like your ploy with my daughter?" Harmony's words chased them down and they stopped in place, Bagan's foot hovering over the empty space they'd been walking on.

"Awful convenient that temporarily losing most of her magic both helped her realize she was still very much worthy of the Elements in the end and hid her from notice of the windigos until the final hour. Isn't it?" Harmony's voice continued to seemingly echo off the infinite nothingness, "You glimpsed some possibilities to come, and then acted. You attacked her to save her on purpose."

"... Her power was needed to secure victory. If she was unable to act, there would be a necessity for me to step in and finish the demons myself," Bagan grunted, "Among other reasons."

Harmony perked her brow and tilted her head, letting her chime studded hair hang past her face, "Such as?"

The fact she was one of four alicorns in existence, four beings with a special portion of Harmony's power beyond emulation. One of only four beings besides Harmony herself which could open Tambelon and release Grogar if the need came. All of that went unstated. Because all of that wasn't the priority in Bagan's mind, and they knew better than to lie and not admit to it before the one being who could understand them so well.

"You'd be upset if your daughter died," Bagan stated plainly.

They knew, unambiguously now more than ever after glimpsing what happened when Celestia combined her magic with the others. They had both seen that power. Neither deity said anything more until they were standing right in front of the portal to the human realm. The sights of the now de-powered sirens, bearers, and retainer; along with their kaiju companions, in clear view as magic continued to saturate the area.

"The ancient humans I taught magic to continued to surpass every limit put in front of them eventually. Every predator, every disaster, every plague. Regardless of if that was a good thing for them and the other life on the planet. Eventually, I was the only limit and goal to surpass left," Bagan stated without growl or scorn, "They sought more than they should, and took everything they could."

"They'd have destroyed their own planet or themselves first. You weren't afraid of being surpassed, you were afraid of what they'd do in the attempts to do so. You had to warn them about-...." Harmony shook her head slowly, bitterly, "You did warn them, no doubt. And some would be foolish enough to try anyways. Being insatiable can be a path to gluttony for more, greed for hoarding what you have, lust for acquiring more; and wrath for those that have it.... Yes, I am very well aware of what mortals abusing their power looks like."

"And yet those humans just now. The human Bearers. They gave it up, not knowing if it would be permanent or not...."

"Did that ever happen on your world?"

"..... No, not once in the older times. Individuals were good. The first was the best. All after her, were not. The collective was gluttonous and suicidally reckless. By their peak, they sought to make themselves gods. Treating their homeworld as but a disposable crib instead of a precious home to be shared with countless. If they achieved their dreams of godhood, no planet, system, or universe would have been enough," Bagan wasn't lying or hiding anything when they said that.

And yet, Harmony so far had not stopped them from taking back what, in a way, was technically hers. The Element of Magic still flickered in Extinction's hand. Bagan was still standing in front of the portal.

"Well, one way or another the heroes have certainly set some great things in motion for the human realm. That world is never going to be the same," Harmony hummed.

"The people have seen giants and feared demons," Bagan grunted morosely.

Harmony instead watched as the magic, her own magic, worked into every piece of land in the immediate area and repaired all of the damage whilst also saturating the world with magic. It would start off small, likely only in this immediate region and likely only after some months or longer, but nevertheless, bit by bit it would spread. She could see it now looking close enough on the microscopic scale.

"They will also have paragons to help them, whether they see them as fellow humans or perhaps something more," Harmony smiled as some of her glittering magic fell upon the ones in the fleeing caravan. Some people were piling out of their cars to look backwards at what happened.

Mr. and Mrs. Cake held their infants as they stepped out, no longer needing their jackets. Pound Cake's little eyes widened and uplifted as the baby giggled when one of the sparks of magic touched their nose. Far away, Flash Sentry was making his way back towards the school and the diner, on the phone with Sunset Shimmer as he walked through the shower of magic along a repairing sidewalk. He was laughing and saying something that got the redhead red-faced and flustered.

"The enchanting may not stay away forever. Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, Kindness, Loyalty, and Empathy have all played their part and all remain.. The question is," She glanced at her companion in this elaborate game they were playing against each other, "If Magic can be the spark to set it all in motion..."

The Element of Magic levitated up in front of glowing red eyes. Fiery orbs that at first looked very fearsome and monstrous. But when imaged through the reflecting faces of the crystal as it slowly rotated, there was a spark of curiosity in Bagan's very tired gaze.

Feeling Harmony’s eyes on them and glimpsing her gaze through the reflecting surface of the crystal, Bagan steeled themself to do something risky. Riskier, in their mind, than seizing the power and attacking the single biggest threat to their plans and burdens in the form of the goddess standing next to and behind them.

-Just this once…-

Bagan tapped a claw to the Element with a small 'dink', sending it through the portal to tumble down into the lands beyond. Eventually, though Bagan had not looked into the future enough to know which possibilities there were, someone worthy would find that. For now though, it would have the desired effect.

With Magic's Element returned to the realm, the Goddess' blessing fully returned to those who proved worthy of it.

Pinkie Pie cheered as she propelled herself up into the air with a bursting clap. Applejack hefted a newly grown crystal and Rarity, who was perched atop it, onto her shoulders. Rainbow Dash whooped after managing to run a lap around the whole school in a few seconds. Fluttershy quietly sat upon a small swarm of light produced butterflies, lifting her into the air. Both former alicorns in Twilight and Celestia took a chance to telekinetically lift themselves above the buildings to stand on a roof and admire the newly liberated sun as it appeared the dissipating clouds. Sunset Shimmer, still on the phone, sprinted down the sidewalk and all but tackled her ex-boyfriend.

When she saw the thoughts in his head, she had the very strong suspicion he wouldn't remain her ex too much longer; especially when it was her turn to smooch him this time.

Her eyes did perk up when, upon pulling away, small green sparks of light like tiny bits of harmless flame, crackled across parts of Flash's rapidly flushing cheeks. Where it happened, his skin turned dark blackened and unnaturally smooth for a moment before rapidly changing to other colors. It went away almost as fast as it came, leaving him only red in the face on account of blushing.

"W-Woah what was?!" Flash yelped, wide eyed.

"Well, looks like minor magic! Not as much as me and the girls but Celestia did say if you stood around long enough it might start rubbing off!... You don't mind, do you?" She lowered her head and her shoulders a bit sheepishly.

".... Well, if I can get used to dating a unicorn, I think I can handle this!" He silenced her by playfully picking up and spinning her around in front of the very school statue they first met at, Sunset laughing in relief.

Harmony did her best to hold back from showing her surprise, happy as she was to see the outcome. Bagan was already making their leave.

“So, what are you to do with your loyal troops now that they have forsworn to not lift a claw at those who have vowed to protect Equestria?” Harmony called out, only feeling the need to as a means of probing on if she needed to extend her protections to the Hunters and keep them from returning to Zenith if they were in danger for making such vows.

For the very first time, the shadowy veil around Extinction lifted. The distortions and eerie manner set aside. Now, if one looked upon them, one could see why ancient Terrans might have once looked up to the tri-horned crown with a mix of adoration, reverence, and admiration. They were looking more like Reijuu by the day.

“... They are where they need to be. I will make that clear once the other kaiju have left as not to risk revealing my return to the Guardian Moth,” Bagan said with their eyes upon their hunters, “I will reclaim them if I have need of them…. Someday.”

“Your subordinates really have changed a lot. Seems my realms have that effect on those from yours,” Harmony turned back to watch, appreciating the view as Gloriosa was chattering away with the still mixed group, “You can take a closer look too someday, if you’d like.”

“You’d really trust me to walk amongst your creations?”

“... Perhaps supervised.”

She heard it for the briefest instant. A short, quiet, rasp of a chuff. They’d actually laughed.

“Centuries watching without action and now you wish to break a self-imposed rule… It seems, you are not immune to change as well…. Until later.”

The distance between gods separated further, but both perhaps knew the distance between ideals was shrinking.

Popping up in front of a now-operating news camera, meant to broadcast to any who might be confused about what was going on in Canterlot, Pinkie Pie giggled as she held Megalon and Sonata under each of her arms in a playful headlock.

“Snow’s over! Heroes win!”

========== Reader Works! ==========
Been awhile since I did this!

By FallenAngel5414 with a fun variety of New Era and EG Pieces with some of her own canon!

By LordShrekZilla20 showcasing design concepts and story art

By Ectttan showcasing some fun recreations of Faith-Wolff style in their own takes!

By ToonHolt adding some more kaiju to the mix along with a G5 style!

By Lionel23 and Marbola with this wonderful rendition of Ki Seong!

By Lilgrimmapple with this very, very tired looking gijinka for Bagan

The adventures on Terra continue!
Several new chapters of Humanity's Stand by its crew have been posted!

A conflict in the past meant to decide against a dark future,
in this sequel to the Halloween Special in A Tale of Three Kings by DiverseInterest47

==================
And as a preview of what is come, and why I made 54 so long besides just it being continuous....
Chapter 55: Hooves to Heart

“And have you changed the lavender flowers to ensure all can rest peacefully- and-and!” Princess Luna promptly walked back over her own words with the tact of literally stomping on them, “Remember not to have too much or the night shift guards will get drowsy and-”

“I know I know,” A teal green hued magic gently lifted and put the line of lavender flowers upon their hangers, lightly tugging on the line to ensure they were strung up good and well. A single petal fell loose from the assortment and fell upon the blue alicorn’s nose.

The teal colored telekinetic magic casually reached it up and nestled it back into the mass, Luna taking her focus off the flowers to look upon her company.

Starlight Glimmer lowered her ears a bit sheepishly as she put another assortment up, “Only keep these flowers up for about four hours before changing them out for the mint to help keep the night staff awake. You drilled me on this three times tonight already, remember Princess?”

Three times tonight and who knew how many occasions prior. There had been plenty of growing pains along their venture so far and no doubt plenty more down the road, but Starlight and Luna had found their new roles as pupil and mentor reasonably naturally. Well, as natural as one could call deferring to Twilight Sparkle and Celestia almost every other day, but to call them both new at this would be a hilarious understatement…

=========

“And remember, the mind is often its own most cunning opposition. Even a dream as peaceful as this might seem to be at first might actually,” Princess Luna, standing in a dreamscape that looked like a completely innocuous field full of flowers surrounded by fluttering butterflies, paused as she glanced over at her pupil.

Starlight Glimmer, having only recently gotten used to being nocturnal, still had bags under her eyes even in the dream world on account of being just that level of bone-tired. She looked half her size, contently curled up under the mattress of butterflies that had flown underneath her and lifted her off the ground. The unicorn didn’t even question it and was out like a light, managing to somehow sleep inside of a dream.

“-be a danger-WAKE UP!” Princess Luna accidentally let out the Royal Canterlot Voice a bit too close and proceeded to blast Starlight and the butterflies several meters away. Asleep in their bed, a very insectophobic stallion groaned and twitched in his rest, pawing at his ear like someone just shouted in it.

“Arwk what-the-huah?!” Starlight jarred awake with an intense ringing in her ears and spiraling end over end. She flailed and tried to figure out what was going on, but her glimpses of Princess Luna offered no sense of calm. Especially when said alicorn seemed to charge up her magic and rush in her direction, eyes white and horn blazing.

Just when Starlight was about to speculate if her teacher was about to kick her flank into next week, she came aware of two things. The first was she was still deafened by the sudden shout and couldn’t tell what Luna was frantically yelling at her about. The second was the mass of butterflies she’d been so pleasantly sleeping on had started collecting together into a single mass. The horde of once such cute looking, innocuous insects turned into a gaping maw that lunged for her as if to swallow the apprentice mage up.

And, naturally because they were in a dream by an insectophobe, the mass of butterflies suddenly was lit on fire and blazed like a hellish demon surging right at her. Starlight screamed out a stream of expletives that got her reprimanded for later as she and Luna battled the ever growing menace of many-legged-nectar-sipping-terrors.

Somewhere far, far away, the bug-fearing stallion whose dream they were in reacted to what followed by launching himself out of bed so quickly he hit his own ceiling face-first, and promptly passed out before he fell back onto his bed sheets.

Luna implemented a new rule following this fiasco. Future dream walking sessions were postponed unless a minimum of 4 hours rest interval was made prior.

============

That was about three weeks ago. Currently, Starlight was managing the dream walking with a power nap prior and it had only gone sideways twice!

“Besiiides, I got the flowers arranged very effectively before!” Starlight beamed with a wide grin.

Princess Luna lowered her brow slightly and tapped the unicorn’s horn with an outstretched wing, “And, dear student, if you meant your effectiveness breached into an overreach then you would be quite accurate. Do remember that the only spells you should be using on the lavender are basic levitation to get them in place for proper circulation. They do not need assistance doing their job.”

The alicorn leaned in closer with perked eyes, “Moderation was an important lesson we took pains to remember in our instruction, did we not?”

Starlight awkwardly chuckled as she rubbed the back of her head and remembered a bigger blunder.

============

Princess Luna used to rely on one of two ways to get herself up in the evening at the proper time, after nodding off for her afternoon rest following talks and breakfast with Celestia. Either her sister herself would come to greet her, or she would make use of one of her most favored modern inventions in the form of an alarm clock. Such a favorable upgrade from the classic sundials and unreliable spells! She’d half considered at one point asking if she and her sister could retroactively sanctify the inventor.

But that was before her current bodyguard employee came about. Entry into her chambers was reserved for only a few castle staff but she had come to enjoy one in particular summoning her from rest. The fact Junior was quite the insomniac and always sharply awake at this hour certainly helped.

Which made her all the more confused when the clock clearly showed it was 8:30, her favorite pillow was missing after her head dropped onto an empty mattress, and her personal guard was as present as her pillow. She’d later find out Celestia had been bone tired after a particularly arduous day and had gone to sleep early in confidence that Luna would take over shortly. The night alicorn instead found the halls quiet despite the brightness, save for one frantic voice.

“UP UP UP! Oh no- nooo nonono- you gotta wake up!” If those words hadn’t been spoken with as much awkwardness in the frantic tone as there was, somepony might mistake it for a completely different context.

Instead, the context Princess Luna walked in on was piles and piles of bodies in the main hall with Starlight Glimmer as the only one left standing. Many bodies. Sleeping bodies. Often snoring bodies. Guards, waitstaff, scribes, a few visiting politicians or petitioners who didn’t mind the nocturnal hours; and one particularly large abnormal unicorn whom Starlight, wearing a filtering medical mask, was holding the face of as she tried to shake him awake.

The hanging rows of lavender directly above the apprentice mage were glimmering with an odd type of magic, one that carried even when their petals fell to the ground and were scattered about the whole floor. Even just catching a faint whiff of it was starting to make Luna drowsy again.

“What happened here? Is everypony okay?” A voice echoed from down the halls. Luna turned her head to spot one of her and Celestia’s aids, a dark maned, pale bodied unicorn named Raven Inkwell; trotting into the hall. She passed underneath one of the hanging masses of oddly glowing lavender and instantly started slowing down when a falling petal passed over her nose.

That was all it took and Starlight knew it. Starlight Glimmer’s ears shot up and she tried to call out fast enough to no avail, “NO NO NO! Don’t come in here!”

“I thought I heard something drop and every-..is...on… the…. groooouun-oooooof,” Her eyes rolled back and her lids closed, the mare losing all awareness and flopping towards the floor. She would have hit it had Starlight’s magic not caught her.

A pillow that looked like it came from one of the various staff room couches poofed into existence underneath her and soon the sleeping Raven was contently snuggling into it in a slumber. Starlight awkwardly laughed to herself, like she was suppressing a full on panic whilst refocusing on the sleeping face of Godzilla in her hooves.

“Ooooh wow I didn’t expect it to be that strong! Maybe you all need to catch back up on your sleep hours because I sure know that issue from experience! Hahaaaaa.... eheh-eheh-eeeeeh….” Starlight got no response, only the sleeping visage of Godzilla who sported a slight smile on his lips like he was recollecting something pleasant. Starlight Glimmer’s flattened expression was visible even through her mask, “… WakeUpWakeUpWakeUpWakeUp!-“

She started shaking his head up and down before a shouting roar called out over the halls.

“STARLIGHT AURORA GLIMMEEEEEER!”

Starlight’s eyes went wide as saucers and she dropped Godzilla’s face before a wave of magic pushed across the room, casting back and containing the potent enchantment placed upon the lavender flowers of all things to bottle it up in a containment field. A vase was overturned, dumping its contents on the floor before the enchantment and most of the flowers were literally bottled up inside of it. Instantly almost everypony in the room started to groggily rise to awareness. The giant unicorn stallion next to Starlight mouthed at the air slightly like he was chewing on something before spitting out a large, chewed up wad of enchanted lavender petals.

“Bleck, sorry Starlight... Flavor isn’t bad but something is,” Junior paused from resuming the last conversation he remembered having, as he looked around the room to see way more ponies than he remembered being around when he was last awares, “… Did I black out? Why does it look like everyone decided to nest in here at once?”

“You did fall asleep actually, you took a really big bite out of-“ Starlight Glimmer was levitating up one of the strands of lavender petals, which had an almost comically large gap in them matching an oversized bite mark, when she paused and stilled when her tail and hair were gripped. The unicorn was raised up by telekinesis before she was entirely encircled in a dim blue aura.

Magically lifted off her hooves and levitated over to her mentor, Starlight blinked as her vision inverted upside down. Luna was still groggy from the off-sleep hours and lavender, leaving her to flip her protégé over on accident but just rolled with it. Starlight scrunched her nose and chewed on her lips when she continued to dangle upside down and held belly up.

“You enchanted the lavender to dramatically increase its relaxing effect, didn’t you?” Luna grumbled.

“In my defense,” Starlight held up a hoof whilst still looking like she was trying to retract her neck into her shoulders like a turtle into its shell, “… I wasn’t expecting it to be that strong nor was I expecting him to eat it.”

“What.. happened? Ooooouh,” Mayor Mare of Ponyville moaned as she got up groggily, “I-I heard somepony collapse and came running but then I…oh? Where’d this come from?”

She pulled out a pillow which had been set underneath her chin. Starlight Glimmer waved sheepishly, only to catch a look from Luna.

“… What?! After Godzilla was down his armor made a big racket on the floor with how big he is, folks came running and started dropping as soon as the lavender fumes or petals hit them!” Starlight glanced aside at the random menagerie of pillows that had been scattered around to cushion everyone who had passed out.

The pillows seemed to be from every kind of room imaginable, from the ornate, to those one would expect on the couch, one Luna recognized as her own and solving that mystery, to frilly pink laced cushions that look like they came out of a child’s room. The latter was picked up by Junior after Mayor Mare had offered it.

“I think this is Chibi’s…” He gave Starlight a side-eye, “What is it doing here?”

Starlight held her forelimbs up, or rather down given she was upside down whilst being suspended in the air, “I had to get pillows quick as everypony just kept running in here like a pack of lemmings and I didn’t have any time to stop it! Soooo, I just ran a teleportation spell through a search-for-items scrying enchantment to grab as many pillows as fast as I could!...”

Luna’s forehead was acquainted with the bottom of her own hoof, “You… Ran two top level spells together, to pilfer pillows… Because you accidentally turned the main hall into a slumber party?”

“Hey they kept running in, I kept telling them to stop!”

“…………..”

“………..” Starlight’s ears flopped down, or rather hung straight up in comparison to her head, “… I uh.. I can use a different spell to-“

She was going to offer a way to mass transport all the pillows back to where they belonged, or at least try, given there was a decent chance of things getting mixed up, in an honest bid to fix her mistakes. Virtually every single occupant in the room shouted out “NO!” too fast for her to get the full sentence out.

The lesson that night was spent learning the streets and layout of the capital city as she went about returning every single pillow by hoof before burning all of the hexed lavender in a safe area. Hearsay still persisted that seemingly everypony that night slept very soundly for some reason they didn’t know.

========

Needless to say, remarking that there had been some teething problems involved in Luna taking to teaching for the first time and Starlight having an actually-present-and-upstanding mentor for a change. The protégé of the night diarch certainly always meant well and did learn from past mistakes, requiring little to no prompting from Luna to fix her errors and that was good of her merit. It was just the stubborn knee-jerk reaction, to jump to spells that often-entailed way more than she should remotely consider in the situations, called for that needed some ironing out.

Which was why Starlight was, by her own volition, wearing a suppressor ring that restricted her to just telekinesis for the moment. Luna frankly didn’t like it, but with how her mentor was in the lead up to this particular night Starlight had wanted to take the action as a sign of good faith and hopefully peace of mind. She already promised the ring's disposal the moment she stepped out of the castle grounds to attend to other duties later in the night.

And speaking of her mentor however, Starlight was well privy to the subtle tremors going up and down her wings.

“Still nervous?” The unicorn said with a perked brow.

“No,” Luna grunted before a brief moment of silence passed and her eyes briefly darted aside before looking out the window and addressing the pupil which had become one of her closer friends these past months, “… Yes… I am.. uncertain this will be as entertaining as I hope it shall be.”

“Well I know it’s been a long time since you were young,” Starlight didn’t notice the mildly pointed look on Luna’s reflection and the accompanying quiet grunt that came from the alicorn being all but directly called ‘old’, “But these sort of events are meant to be kind of like what you grew up with. So do you think you’re not going to have a good time?”

The unspoken ‘event’ in question was on the brain and Luna recollected back to simply, fondly remembered times. Running amongst games and contests with Celestia, playfully hiding from Hurricane and Starswirl whilst Smart Cookie pretended not to notice them whilst slipping confectioneries under the booth they were hiding in, and partaking in all manner of childish pursuits amongst the premises. Even centuries later it made her chest warm and wings wiggle from nostalgia.

“That is-“ Luna was interrupted.

“-Definitely notta question,” A third voice joined the discussion as Captain Blueberry Frost paced upwards, her voice mildly muffled by the filtered medical mask before eying the lavender, “Not that I wouldn’t mind any shut-eye, but ye' sure ye' got those things handled?”

“Yep! Just plain old flowers,” Starlight chirped, tapping at her horn ring, “As promised.”

“Good thing, now…” The comparatively short Captain of the Guard stood up before Princess Luna with her lance at her side, “Ah' believe ah' was to see ye' off with these?”

At her will and opening of a satchel attached to her armor, Captain Frost allowed Luna to retrieve two small bands of metal. Starlight Glimmer perked up and leaned in closer to have a look, noticing how the metalworking looked similar to some of the pieces of the captain’s lance, which actually seemed to be missing the exact parts.

“What are those for?” Starlight Glimmer said, ears tilting up and about.

Captain Frost glanced at Luna before sniggering, “Consider it a final exam question.”

“Exam?” Starlight’s eyes widened, “There’s an exam? I knew there were tests involved, but I thought we were talking in the metaphorical sense when I became Princess Luna’s pupil! If there’s an exam involved, I gotta study up right? I-I gotta focus! I gotta prepare and-“

Captain Frost partially shoved her hoof against Starlight’s muzzle to shoosh her, brow lowered and a deadpan in her tone, “Stop razzling ye’self kid, Ah’ was pulling your tail.”

“Starlight, you have done commendably so far tonight and I have full faith that you will continue to do so. Relax,” Princess Luna rolled her eyes and smiled, “I’ll show you what these are for by morning.”

Starlight Glimmer felt her pulse slow back down and she managed a deep breath to control it further. With how many errors she had made in the past and was trying to hold herself accountable to, there was very much a lingering fear of being cut off from what she saw as a path to redemption. And, if her past blunders during her tutelage as Luna’s protégé had shown, she was still prone to some overreactions.

“Well then, I shall leave you to it as you leave other duties to me!" Starlight chirped as she bowed to her mentor, “You can count on me Princess!”

With a brief pause as she remained in place, eyes closed, Luna caught a glance by Captain Frost nodding towards the unicorn. The earth pony mouthed a word and reemphasized her nodding to help Luna catch on. A little reminder, one instructor to another, to give some encouragement.

“Oh.. It was never in doubt faithful student,” Luna parroted Celestia’s example meaningfully and patted Starlight’s shoulder with a wing, signaling the unicorn to rise and depart after giving the captain of the guard a respectful bow as well.

After she left the room, Luna allowed her posture to slump slightly as she sighed in relief and continued to shiver.

“What if this doesn’t work?” Luna whined quietly, losing a lot of her typical poise, chewing her lip.

Captain Frost snorted and nudged her shoulder with a hoof, “Lulu, I can most definitely assure you that the enchantments work just fine.”

Starlight Glimmer blinked as she exited the room, half wondering if she heard that echoed whisper right.

-Lulu? Who is… Never mind, must have misheard it...-

Princess Luna took in a deep breath and slipped the band across her horn. In an instant, the blue alicorn’s form flickered with specks of green magic like tiny embers. She changed in color, in figure, and in size.

Author's Note:

You know what this means? No more ice!
Proofed by Lance Omikron and Faith-Wolff!

Comments

[Dragon-from-down-under]

That was a long and emotional ride, there were many things that I enjoyed in this chapter, for starters Bagan decision; that one was heartwarming, the hunters and defenders vow, Sonny’s forgiveness, and everyone stepped up to help with the aftermath and stepping up too be better.

Eurus, the monster of a bygone age, though they knew it not in specifics, actually felt the impact. This wasn’t just a radioactive heat and plasma ray like before, there was something barely perceptible but ancient in the onslaught. Something similar to the kind of magic Grogar himself had. The faint essence of a destroyer deity not too different from Grogar, or something that had once been one.

I saw what you did there 😏

[thatguyvex]

I can only imagine what you must be feeling, Tarb, to finally wrap this arc up. I sincerly hope you take a bow, celebrate a job well done, and get some rest.

Honestly I'm not certain what I can actually say, having marathoned through these chapters in the span of yesterday and today. You know my thoughts on certain matters pretty well, already, my friend, so I'll just say that the parts that mattered most to someone like me you managed to nail in the ways that I felt worked. Thank you for that.

The action here was as crazy as it was well thought through and executed, and even the length and pacing worked for what operates as the climax of an arc with this much build up. Leaves me wondering how you're going to top yourself for the story's finale, but I don't doubt you will.

Truly I wish there was more I can say, but my brain is a tad frazzled after reading all of this. All I'll end with is that I'm starting to warm up to Bagan in ways I wasn't expecting, and his and Harmony's building relationship is starting to become among my highlights of this story.

Again, thank you for all the work you put into this, man. Now get some rest and chill, you deserve it.

[Temnizziv]

First impressions, I enjoyed this finale. Brain's a little fried being late at night at the time of writing so I can only provide my unga bunga caveman thoughts.

The Heroes had some epic moments in the Eurus fight, and it was accompanied by some neat visuals. Though it is held back by Eurus' fighting style being monotonous with only throwing the wind blades.

The Zephyrus scenes this time around was much more appropriately paced. And I was initially iffy on what you might've been planning with Wallflower, but I was satisfied with the end result of the fight.

The aftermath of the climax was the primary highlight of the chapter. The Avengers reference with the Waffle House got a good laugh out of me. And my favorite part in the whole chapter was Sonata's speech to Twilight & Wallflower displaying a surprising level of maturity on Sonata's part.

I also enjoyed Bagan & Harmony's Convo in the void, and I'm interested to see where you're gonna go with Bagan in the future. It also seems like the Equestrian Villains will also be taking more centerstage as the antagonists.

Almost forgot. AYO, FLASH IS A FUCKING CHANGELING! HOLY SHIT!

The prologue for 55 was also cute. Can't wait to read it.

[Vman-0]

Overall, I'll just say that this arc's most contentious factor was the collection of villains and antagonists, AKA the Wendigos, Sci-Twi, and Wallflower Blush.

I will not miss the quartet of malicious hax-users, nor do I expect the two misguided teens to get anywhere near prominent appearances in the future, outside of cameos that might show those two either become ostracized by the Rainbooms or manage to squeak by with them. I will say that, while they got a nice send-off, they won't be missed.

Aside from that, I'd give this arc a 7/10... With the benefit of hindsight and getting to read through these snow-themed chapters again, perhaps that may change.

[Moongaze14]

Amazing chapter. It was a long road for the Windigo arc, but happy we get to see the ending. Zephyrus being ganged up on was cathartic and I love his attempt at revenge, attempting to kill Sci-Twi and disposing of the Element of Magic, backfired tremendously when Celestia and Twilight stopped him from doing the former by letting him do the later, thus powering them up to destroy him. Eurus proved to be a threat too big for the Kaiju to stop alone, so seeing Celestia, the Sirens, and the EG girls working together to destroy was a spectacle to behold.

The aftermath of the fight was my favorite part of the chapter with everyone relaxing, Twilight coming with some amazing discoveries, Kaiju peace, and Sonata making it clear to Sci-Twi and Wallflower that, while she acknowledges that she has no room to judge as she also hurt people in the past, she does not forgive them for their actions even if she understands they were manipulated. Bagan and Harmony talk was very entertaining, especially as we learn about how the Windigos became Grogar’s underlings and we see both of them develop as characters. Overall, this arc was entertaining and I can’t wait to see the next one. The preview of the next arc involving Starlight and Luna seems to be a more lighthearted one, especially with how funny the events of the lavender flower turned out to be. Can’t wait for the next chapter.

[Late_Night]

holy fucking SHIT, finally we're done with that damned arc!
PogChamps in the chat, boys and girls, it's been a long rough road, but we're finally here!
only took us... uh... several fucking YEARS
ok, mandated bitching out of the way, can i just say that the Bagan and Harmony scene around the end was the best part of this arc?
hell, all the interactions between those two were the best parts of this arc
watching Bagan develop and... well, change isn't quite the right word, more like reform or revert has honestly been one of the best parts of the story at large, never mind this arc
speaking of arcs, looks like the next one is at least starting off nice and sweet
here's hoping that one doesn't take fucking years to finish

[Curtis Wildcat]

I don't think words can ever express how I feel about this chapter's end. "Wow" is pretty much all I have left in me.

[Booster Spice]

Its a pity SciTwi screwed up so badly. Th right set of sciences with Creation Magic could lead to all sorts of discovereies and advancements. Then Bagon would have to order out through runaway implementation of peperclip cupcake maximiser.

And for characters not appearing at the finale.

Poor Spikes.

[Alex Warlorn]

You've worked on this epic even longer than I worked on Pony POV Series. This is a creation of true love.

[CrystalMaster76]

I still have my issues with this chapter, but it is the best of the four finale parts. Given I’ve been mixed at best on the previous three chapters I’ll add that this chapter is quite good.
A big part of my enjoyment this time is due to Eurus. I was not expecting to enjoy the final Windigo as much as I did, but everything about him worked. Visually he’s a slam dunk, it’s rare to have a Kaiju battle where the Kaiju are the smaller ones, and it gives Eurus a real walking malevolent disaster vibe. He stays unique and intimidating throughout the whole battle. A standout moment was when Junior used the Ultima Spiral blast to destroy Eurus’ arm. Junior’s strongest attack yet and he only takes out one arm and KO’s himself in the process. I also am glad there was no effort to give Eurus a real personality. It’s way too late in the game to introduce a whole new character, so keeping the final boss more a force of destruction than an individual was the right call.

In regards to this arc’s longest running issue, the over-explaining of things is still present, but down played. Junior’s reflection on his pupils right before his ultimate attack was a negative example of halting some well built up momentum.
Twilight’s reflecting on the whole arc and her role in it was a positive example that was actually well timed, but it’s cheapened somewhat because there have been so many of these in recent chapters.

The one carryover problem from before that still holds things back is Zephyrus. From the moment he stole the geode the character has felt disingenuous. The whole 1 hour of life rule never amounted to anything and felt extra false given how long these four chapters were. He simply didn’t feel like he earned surviving this long, the plot needed him to survive this long so every thing goes ridiculously right for him to just somehow not die. Between the memories somehow not catching up with him, surviving repeated gang ups and just somehow surviving the geode at all, it just made his final actions ring hollow. His death is at least a little better than Boreus but I still didn’t really much when he died.

I also don’t think Wallflower worked here. She already had her “redemption” moment back in part 1, so this felt redundant. But more importantly, I don’t buy her saving SciTwilight. I’m meant to believe that their bond was strong enough that still memory loss SciTwi was able to overcome Zephyrus just from seeing her by the statue? Not buying it. Throw in an obvious death fake out (which was especially disappointing for me) and her whole role in this chapter fell flat.
Except for the final scene with her and Sci-Twi. That was very well handled. Sonata calmly and a bit coldly explaining why she’s letting them go, but also that she never wants to see them again is exactly the reaction they deserved. They aren’t heroes, just victims of their own making. No reconciliation, no deeper explanations, just a get out of here and stay out. Perfect.

I’m mixed on the geode of Magic’s fate. It really is not great how Celestia and Twilight give up the best weapon they have against Eurus, who is trying to kill everyone including Sci-Twi, just to save Sci-Twi. It’s heroic on a surface level but falls apart the moment you think about it. But on the other hand the geode being lost ends up as such a non issue for the heroes I’m left wondering why a big deal had to be made of it at all.

The geode does lead into the excellent scene with Bagan and Harmony though. Bagan giving Harmony the overall win even as he does somewhat prove her wrong is a great conclusion to the background arc these two have had.

The Avengers reference with everyone in a Waffle House and the comedy there in was absolutely hilarious. And I like where everyone is left off at the end. Speaking of which, almost everyone got something unique to do at some point in the final and while I feel that some of this could’ve been lost for the sake of a more compact fight narrative, they are cool in and of themselves. The only three who don’t really get something unique are Lea, Irys and Fluttershy, and they do enough as part of the group to make up for that.

Overall: this finale suffered from being too big for its own good, with the pacing for the villains defeats and just in general being the big losers. This final chapter was the best of them and landed all the most important stuff, characters and themes mostly well.
There’s a few loose threads that could stand to be addressed, especially once the party returns to Equestria, but this is a solid finale.

[redandready45]

A thought has been brewing in my brain for a while, but I wanted to wait for the arc to end before I shared it.

There is a lot you can take away from Winter War. But one theme I take away from Winter War is this: what does it mean to be a hero and to do something heroic? It is interesting to see this theme explored with two characters whose roles have been reversed from canon: Sci-Twi and Gloriosa Daisy.

In canon Legend of Everfree, Sci-Twi was the protagonist who overcame her self-doubt, learned to trust her friends, and became the human world's Element of Magic. Gloriosa Daisy was the misguided antagonist who had her magic taken away when she chose to use it for selfish purposes.

In The Bridge, Gloriosa is the selfless hero, while Sci-Twi is the misguided antagonist who causes a LOT of harm. But the very reason for her bad decisions was, ironically, her desire to be a hero, or more specifically, to feel like a hero and live up to the reputation of her counterpart. While Zephyrus and his toxic influence stoked her ego, her obsession with personal glory drove her to do the Windigos bidding without consideration for the consequences.

Meanwhile, despite being a hero, Gloriosa wasn't someone who actively sought heroism or glory: she just wanted to help those around her. She helped Sonata through her pain, gave Gigan and Adagio the comfort and advice they needed to get back on the right track, worked with Princess Twilight to take control of the situation, and helped the Dazzlings and Dark Hunters mend bridges with the Rainbooms and Terran Defenders, and gave her life to protect her friends. In the end, she was rewarded with the power of Gaia Everfree for her benevolent and thoughtful actions and gained two potential loves in the form of Adagio and Gigan.

A hero has many qualities, but the most important are conscientiousness (being aware of how your actions impact those around her), consideration, and kindness. Heroism is not about who you are or what face you wear but what you do and how your actions affect those around you. Being named Twilight Sparkle doesn't automatically make you a hero, nor do your intentions, nor are you destined for heroism. Being a hero means considering how your decisions will impact the world around you before you act.

Gloriosa wasn't someone who wanted to live out some heroic fantasy: she had compassion and empathy for those around her, and because of that, she became a hero. Sci-Twi, meanwhile, was obsessed with the idea of heroism, wanting to be seen like her pony counterpart, and thus made awful decisions that worsened the lives of everyone around her.

Can Sci-Twi be rightly called evil? No. She was naive, ignorant, misled, and had she been more aware of certain things, she wouldn't have worked with Zephyrus. Are there extenuating circumstances? Yes. Sci-Twi was confronted with a manipulative demon with no frame of reference for what an evil magical creature was. Did Sci-Twi come from an unfair environment that stunted her personal growth? Yes. Unlike her pony counterpart, who went to a good school with a loving mentor and a strong support network, Sci-Twi had to go to a school full of cruel snobs that were run by a woman who Sci-Twi as a tool for personal advancement. Is she devoid of virtue? Of course not. For all her failings, her care for Wallflower was genuine.

But was Sci-Twi still inconsiderate, irresponsible impulsive, and reckless? Yes, she was. She automatically took the words of a total stranger with little hesitation, didn't question Zephyrus' orders, and carried them out without hesitation or consideration because she wanted to live out a heroic fantasy; thus, she couldn't be called a hero. The brave thing would've been to question Zephyrus' actions and challenge his manipulation. She is, therefore, directly responsible for injuring Sonata and robbing her, and she bears no small amount of culpability for the damages and personal traumas that were inflicted..

While I feel Sci-Twi has been treated too harshly during the arc, I agree that Sci-Twi not getting the Element of Magic, the magic artifact that would mark her as a hero, is DEFINITELY what she deserves for her arrogance. I also think the heroes wanting nothing to do with Sci-Twi and Wallflower, at least for the immediate future, and barring them from their "celebratory feast" are also fair punishments, as is Sonata's firm but fair request that they live good lives, but keep out of hers.

Despite her poor choices, I'm somewhat saddened that the arc has ended with Sci-Twi not given a path toward one day obtaining the Element of Magic or making amends by the heroes, let alone friendship, and is instead being treated like a pariah by them.

I respect that the Dark Hunters and Dazzlings want nothing to do with Sci-Twi or Wallflower, and it makes sense that even the nicest of the Rainbooms would be too tired, exasperated, and disappointed with them and their bad decisions to want them around for a good while.

Still, I am dismayed that the Rainbooms, the Princesses, and the Terran Defenders aren't offering Sci-Twi a path to redemption or the comfort they've given to some of their other enemies. After all, Wallflower and Sci-Twi made some gestures that showed they wanted to make amends and accepted Sonata's judgment with dignity. Wallflower's acts of atonement, from embracing Sonata and confronting Frostbite Sparkle, seem emblematic of the magic of friendship. And the Bearers in both dimensions have given many of their enemies second chances.

But now that I think about it, Sci-Twi being away from everyone for the immediate future is for the best. Magic itself is nothing but a bad memory to her, and she has a lot of personal issues to work through to not only be able to forgive herself but overcome the personal failings that led her to follow Zephyrus. I believe building her own social circle, learning responsibility and emotional maturity, and becoming assertive so no one can manipulate her, i.e. the qualities of a hero, are prerequisites for any kind of reconciliation. It is a pity she doesn't have a soft landing and has to take those steps without the guidance or help of the heroes she wants to be a part of.

But I hope, with Wallflower at her side, she can build a new life and, maybe, get a chance to make amends and become friends with (at least) the Rainbooms and perhaps be allowed to wield the new Element of Magic. But again, she'll have to work for those things.

This was a spectacular arc with a beautiful ending. The battle with Eurus and Zephyrus' downfall was both highlights for me. And the preview already excites me for the next arc.

Congratulations on completing this.

[Arcane Howitzer]

The good news is this whole frostbitten bruhaha probably push back Global Warming by a good decade or so. The bad news is it's going to play merry hell with the weather for the foreseeable future.

The windigo cursed her, cursed everything in tongues and words none understood but registered the intent of.

I wanted to use Cell reverting from Perfect to Semi-Perfect after upchucking 18, but I couldn't find a good clip of it.

“GROOOOOGF1584AF1584AARR!”

So angry he broke the formatting... I think.

[mjadino8823]

What a ride this arc has been. So many twists and turns to keep us all on our toes. In your mind, what would the windgos have looked like in the time before grogar corrupted them, tarb?

[ThatOneOtherGuy]

I didn’t hate this arc, but I do agree with the majority when they say that the windigo arc was way too long and overly dramatic. But nevertheless, this was still really, REALLY, good. The final battle and the ending overall was easily my favorite part of the whole arc with the characters simply going somewhere to eat after fighting an inter dimensional threat reminding me a lot of the ending to The Avengers.

I do kinda wish that a small break is taken before ramping the story back up for the next story arc. Maybe give some focus to characters that were completely abandoned during this such as Rodan, Destroyah, Xenilla, Chibi Moon, Ki Seong, and Princess Cadence (btw, she’s been pregnant for four years now). Maybe see how Godzilla, Lea, Anguirus, Twilight, and Celestia react to them now having to return to Equestria and see what effects this whole war has had on them. And maybe afterwards some slice of life chapters, after all it wouldn’t make sense to end one arc only to rush right back into another one. Especially with just how massive this one was, it’s gonna be a while before you can top it.

Overall, aside from those two major problems that I mentioned and me not really caring for characters like Wallflower, this arc was still really good. I can’t wait to see where this story goes next. Thanks for not abandoning this series for a whole ten years (I feel old saying that).

[SuperSaiyanGodzilla]

At long last the Rainbow Rocks Arc is finally over with a bang good work Tarbtano.

But Holy Shit I didn’t expect Harmony being the true creator of the Windigos but were desecrated and corrupted by Grogar, I kinda feel bad for the innocent beings they were but not for the demonic freaks they have become.

You know despite what Sci-Twi and Wallflower did were stupid I do feel bad for them(more so with Sci-Twi) as ultimately they were deceived and manipulated by Zephyrus. I understand that realistically they can’t just be forgiven right away for what they did in their naivety and ignorance, but I do hope that those two especially Sci-Twi will get the salvation they need soon. (I mean if Starlight can get it right after Ghidorah’s death for something a tad bit worse why can’t she?)

[Prism Smasher]

He was back up and doggedly charging the windigo within a few moments, heedless to his bodily damage and sprinting like a homicidal angry lemming.

That has to be one of the best lines I've ever read.

[Jmunoz13]

Man what a long winter story, I’m greatful it finished strong and ready to see what other adventures lie in store for the ponies and kaiju.

[The Voice in the Water]

I'm not going to lie, seeing Wallflower and Sci-Twi get torn up (physically and mentally) was very cathartic. As was Sonata telling them to piss off and never show their faces again.

That last part between Bagan and Harmony was really good. Also, I don't know if it's intentional or not, but Grogar sounds a bit like the Wyrm from World of Darkness.

[hydra30]

So the Windigo arc finally draws to a close. We finally get to see those monsters get what was coming to em, so satisfying.

I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of Sci-Twi and Wallflower.

[Charedfirescale]

I thought Adiago would have ended up with Princess Twilight due to the almost kissing scene when she was training Twilight as Eventide. Where/when did Gloriosa begin having feelings for Adiago? Gigan is a bit off too, since it really only happened as a result of fighting the windigos with love magic.

So who ends up with the magic element now that both Sci-Twi and Wallflower are persona non grata for the group?

Finally if the Dark Hunters enter Equestria, will they change into mlp forms or shrunken versions of their own forms like usual?

[Supersonic]

Top Gear style recap 54 Part 3 (from Goji's POV):

Tonight, Winter wraps up, two gods talk about human nature, and I get a taste of being a minimum wage employee.

[Ri2]

OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY OVER

[Mr Lore miser]

"I can't ask them to forgive me, and that's gonna motivate me for the rest of my life," Sonata shook her head, "So I'm not going to say I forgive you, so you'll remember for the rest of yours.... Because I never want to see you again."

Awesome story but I don't know how I feel about this I can understand where sonata and the other sirens are coming from, however I feel like they would be more understanding as well because in truth Twilight and wallflower were used by wendigos as well so I feel like it would have been better if the sirens forgave them

[Super Saiyan D]

This man's out here cranking out multiple 25K+ word drops within days of each other... I need to step it up.

[Dragon-from-down-under]

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No, Terra is alive in someway or form, but ultimately is still a stationary Celestial body and doesn’t act like Xs prison Gorath. But let’s say Gaia did have avatar, then all the events that happened (such as the extinction hour, and couple other events) wouldn’t come to bee, because Rejiiuu wouldn’t be lonely. Also Godzilla senior went after the aspects because he sensed them, and seemed to recognised them (not personally, but stories he heard about from the moth) and had some idea about their intentions, same with Bagan when the two fought.

[Dragon-from-down-under]

11610702
I picked up on this: Eurus, the monster of a bygone age, though they knew it not in specifics, actually felt the impact. This wasn’t just a radioactive heat and plasma ray like before, there was something barely perceptible but ancient in the onslaught. Something similar to the kind of magic Grogar himself had. The faint essence of a destroyer deity not too different from Grogar, or something that had once been one.

Are you referring to the leviathan, because if you are, then I’m concerned because if I remember correctly in theongeony Creations foe is destruction, grogar may still be a destroyer deity, but not harmony foe. Because the leviathan acted on its own after forming, that means the same can be said about super, a hate filled and wrath incarnate monster that’s destroys everything around it.

[Mr Lore miser]

11619300
I know right and i also just got done reading sound of thunder and I want there be a crossover so bad

[Dragon-from-down-under]

11620648
Well, theres the hope the mirror universe mirror portal hasn’t been destroyed by celestia yet, because I can see (blue Godzillasaure with lighting powers: forgot name) appearing at the end of the bridge. When grogar is released (not immediately after being revived but a chapter or 4) because do remember King Caesar is somewhere in equestria asleep

[Mr Lore miser]

11620669
So there is hope for a crossover thank you Mr down-under

[Dragon-from-down-under]

11620673
The hope is there but don't expect raiga and caesar to show up until maybe 3 - 4 chapters after Grogar has awakened and caused havoc a bit, and you're welcome

[Mr Lore miser]

11620696
So what do you think of the latest ark did you think it was too long as well a lot of people have been saying that

[Dragon-from-down-under]

11620711
Yes, my only complaint is that this Arc went on a little bit longer then it should've, but some writers that I know have the same Problem with Verbage and word salad.
I will say I enjoyed the four parter, especially Ereus, Just look at him, so scary and cute (that's my opinion at least)
this arc really gives one the idea that really only ones doing meaningful damage was the Girls and Celestia.
I've seen many godzilla fanfictions suffer repeat plot from movies or from the show and treat Godzilla and the kaiju as would be gods that can't be killed or anything and treat them as if they can kill anything, which Irks me.

But when looking at this Arc, It's needed because when reading through it you get the idea that The kaiju's aren't these forces of nature or invincible gods as one would believe, they are still venerable.
In the end the kaiju are still mortal beings that are extremely longed lived and have incredible power to boot.
Sure Jr & Co where contributing, but Jr was the only one that didn't need help with injuring Eraus when pairing Ultima burst and red spiral ray together, which Points to the Halloween Special with the leviathan and Godzilla Earth...I think. not the attack done but the energy of a former Destroyer Kami.

Angy Felt sorta useless against Eraus, though he has extreme defences that really all he amounted too, again it's not bad if someone can't physically partake in a fight but can use that impenetrable shells of theirs for defending's others, Hopefully he will gain the ability for ranged attacks. Love you anguries, don't hate you, but Male Muto and Zilla Jr are my favourites.

IT's also cool to have a mental image of the red spiral ray or fusion ray having enough Physical pressure to shunt something around that would possible if not out right dwarf Godzilla earth both in size and potentially width, really gives you an Idea how powerful that thing is, in both pressure and power.

[Dragon-from-down-under]

Has anyone seen the new Skull Island show on Netflix?

[diverseinterests47]

11619300
Tarb wrote the finale all at once. He doesn't write that fast.

[Seraphem]

Alright lets get this arc closed out with.... a lot of screaming in agony as the last two Windibastards get molten Weaponized Friendship whole body exfoliation.

left the cyborg with a conclusion.

This fiasco had gone on long enough and it was about to get a lot worse the longer that big monstrosity was still alive. There was only one thing that would be able to put that colossus down, and it was currently around the neck of their other problem.

Solution. End this annoying little portal spamming shit so the rest can Rainbow Nuke the bigger threat!

“Should I be afraid of what’ll happen if I ever make you angry?”

Well, obviously. But for entirely different reasons. Also Damn I missed Gigan...

Getting more folks might find a way to slow them down

Need more options got it..... also stop by a store on the way and grab ALLLLLL the sprinkles they have! The Pink One will need ammo.

The cyborg disappeared in a blink of red light and reappeared on the hood of Warhawk’s car.

Damnit Gigan, either warn the driver of this, or aim for the roof!

Warhawk didn’t question nor argue, just complied.

Smart guy...... yeah this is not the time to question the super human killing machines.

“You’re missing an arm,”

Oh... right.... forgot about that.... damn.

now my pride is going to be as shattered as these icy bastards are going to be by the end of the day

Oh no no no..... Given how many people will be taking turns stomping on their corpses... they will be in way WAY more pieces then your pride.

and honestly it looked like a miracle she was even standing on two feet

Then let her keep on sitting in the car!

And they weren’t going to get more Element magic unless Pinkie here got herself back to full strength and returned Twilight’s Element

Not following the logic on this one. I think it's saying they won't get the Element of Magic back without Pinkie but... that's not really the case, and nothing says Pinkie would be that useful in stopping the Ice Witch... and really, this is two problems with the same solution. You need more Geodes to fully activate the OFC, Magic is around Ice Witch's neck, Laughter you can't use till you get Sonata's necklace... which is also around Ice Witch's neck. Solution... get every one not currently holding off the big guy to just pin that freaking annoying pain in the ass down long enough to Friendship the evil out of the idiot and get the rest of the geodes

and had instead gotten a salvo of red spiral fire from an irate Godzilla.

Okay, I know it's not going to REALLY hurt but...that has got to at least do SOME damage to something that frozen!

“I kinda only caught every-other-fifth-word when you gave the download to Megalon.”

I'm not sure if I should be impressed she caught that much, or suspiciously disappointed she didn't catch all of it....

“And w-what about me?!”

Sit down, shut up, and try very, very, very hard not to screw things up..... again.

A source of problems named Wallflower Blush he really wanted to put through a wall.

Like I said, as much as I really am not that sympathetic to Sci-Twi for this, I do at least feel more of it then I did for Venli over in Stormlight Archives, Wallflower? She gets about as much as her. Granted some of that is bleed over from canon Wallflower's whole idiotic 'I need to make the person who was in no way involved with what I'm upset over suffer because of thing I'm pissed about that I am the sole cause of!" thing.

“We need to slow them down for Twilight’s memories to get back to them and there is nothing you can do. You must have helped my brother and his friends, so for that I’m giving you a small mercy. Get out.”

Okay..... the sudden stop, teleport away, then back, only to pause and keep on lecturing her out of nowhere is odd, but so is him just, giving her the low down on the core issue before reminding her to GTFO. Why waste the time on that?

The empty backseat was all that was in sight.

Uggggggggggggghhhhhhh...... she's going to do something stupid but that ends up saving the day... isn't she?

Claim that without Zephyrus, she’d never have wound up doing what she did.

Huh.... I did not expect my Venli tangent to actually fit this well..... that said, while Zephyrus is way more of a threat, Ulum was way more fun to see play Shoulder Devil.

Claim that without Zephyrus, she’d never have wound up doing what she did.

Hold up.... Okay, taking the risk to ask that and then erasing it if the answer is no.... I get that... but before he even answered? That... that is just pathetic use of that power...

Also given canon, I really am not seeing her give this anywhere near that amount of thought back then...

Something she intended to act on if she could just get there in time-

Well point to her over Venli, she actually decided to do something to help out without needing outside pressure.... still not caring about her though. This is just resigned, okay story is going to let her get in some measure of a "Look I didn't screw up 100% of things i touched!" moment. Which I'm all for in general but in this case..with her.... not really feeling it.

the biggest thing they could do was protect those that could end this.

Time to swap to tanking and let the squishies be the DPS.

Right now, when the storm was absolutely laden with dark magic, it created an unsightly effect when his body absorbed it.

Ohhh, bad side to being so good at taking in energy.... good when it means you can sub in Magic for Radiation..... not so much in conditions like this, on top of just being freaking cold.

Fortunately there was a bit of a workaround he’d been figuring out, magic lessons with Chibi and Luna weren’t just about making a bigger beam.

Ohhhhh, very nice way to deal with that problem.... even if it's likely not going to do any damage since the Windigos are the type that are very much not vulnerable to their own magic.

Also now I have the image of Godzilla versus Ganondorf in the traditional Dead Man's Volley game... Godzilla just tanks the hit,Ganondorf gloats about it, only for big G to just spit the shot back even faster then if he'd smacked it.

the residual dark magic he involuntarily absorbed having been purged and vented off.

Huh.... NVM, that said, yeah still a good way to deal with this, and to set up potential for future fights.

-Thank you, Luna.-

All praise do be unto Best Princess!

was what was going on inside of his head, not just what came firing out in the plasma rays.

Godzilla is a thinking kaiju!

So, something about his nature is shielding Angy from some of the effects of this..... now the first thing that needs to be checked is if this also holds true for Irys.

Terran magic and Equestrian magic did not coexist well.

Ohhh, right.... so also, how is this affecting Lea? But yeah, Angy being more mystical in nature, versus Godzilla just, pretty much being an energy omnivore. Huh.... interesting and makes sense.

as he groaned in mild pain and lost a few spikes; but he was weathering the hits better than others could hope.

Whooooo now just be ready to pop that tank LB3 if things start going bad!

and changes from a plasma ray to a kind of phosphorus vapor, and then from a vapor into an open flame as the temperature remained hot enough to ignite the buildings more than the kinetic force would obliterate them.

Ohhhhhh I see what you did here story....... nice!

The Bearers had not taken his stand as a sign to stand alone. But they were not in the best shape.

Yeah, it's been a long day for them..... still..... it's the only thing you have that he even notices in any real way, just need a way to amp up it's power.

“We can’t waste time pulling a four-lady chorus for a seven woman band! We need more power, ‘fore we keel over!”

In other words, stop wasting your strength on the one that barely feels your blows, and take out the much squishier asshole that very much will feel it, and who taking out will give you the rest of the group to get to full power..... and also weaken the big guy just by how Windigos work.

Also because I want to see that frigid asshole DEAD! already.

If you try to use your own magic to fuel the spell, you might even lose it entirely or worse!”

Also... really is more a case of needing the full set for this to work, so again..... get on the giant dino and get over to the other fight!

The rainbow of light formed around them as a song chorus built up against the howling winds. And this time, the radiance started to form a shape.

Well, okay then..... wasn't expecting that to work,and does feel like.... it kind of shouldn't even though I get the logic here, it's just.... an odd choice that admittedly I lost half the discussion over when it got overly wordy while what was going on was clear already.

Still, interesting take on things just, kind of feels...... not as satisfying as just killing Zeph already and simply getting the full set.

The faint essence of a destroyer deity not too different from Grogar, or something that had once been one.

Well... okay then.... that could lead to all kinds of theory crafting

Magical energy flew out of him and back towards Celestia as what was once a multi-story dinosaur became a barely conscious man.

Yikes.... the big gun is down..... but at least he managed to blast that fucker good at least once before getting taken out.

His plan must have been to charge up Irys,

So... this means new plan, start setting shit on fire! Where's Harry Dresden when you need him!?

With all the crazy powers these windigo had, overhearing things in their gale forces wouldn’t be too surprising and she wasn’t taking more risks.

Look at Purple Smart being all smart..... and purple.

Celestia and Twilight closing in caused the Western Wind to shriek in pain as the Element of Magic,

I mean, even without the Element acting up, seeing a pissed off Momlestia charging at you is more then enough reason to make Twilight need to change her clothes after this.

It wasn't a matter of winning this confrontation, there was no hope of that. It was a matter of denying them their victory.

Wow you suck... but damn do I kind of love just how committed to being as utterly spiteful as possible he is about this.

All for the irony of someone who posed no threat whatsoever to meddle in last minute affairs.

Of course.....

-No…-

Wow..... that color does not play well with having the site in Dark Mode.

Rammed through her gut and erupting out of Wallflower Blush’s back, several icy talons made of dark magic began to melt

Wait... what... huh..when? For as much as you like overexplaining things story..... I have no idea what just happened. Last bit of blocking we got was Frostbite only halfway to the portal they were heading for, with Wallflower next to said portal..... so how are they now close enough for this to happen? If Wallflower was right next to the portal... And beyond that, when did this happen? Wallflower called out, Frostbite froze and then... a whole bunch of how the body wasn't responding to Zeph and yet, clearly it responded enough to do this but again... how'd they get that close? When?

Yeah this whole scene is really confusing what about happened.

The broken memories were fully restored,

Again how!? Did.... they just stand still long enough for the memories to catch up? But, then why isn't that mentioned, this is coming off like this whole scene with Wallflower made them come back on their own..... which is not how the Memory Stone works, the only way the memories come back, is they actually come back, which they've been trying to do for some time. I can buy this distracted Zeph long enough for that to happen but, still should get some clarification of this happening rather then act like this whole scene, that was already confusing about what happened, caused it on it's own.

before he kicked the mortally wounded in the gut.

First "mortally wounded" what? Second... he kicked her in the gut.. that he currently still has his arm rammed through? Again, I get the overall idea of what you are going for but the blocking on this all is very confusing.

The wind from the storm blown back as the goliath form of Megalon came erupting upwards

And now, he can start setting EVERYTHING on fire!

But again.... this is just odd, the whole scene, it's still got the over explaining stuff, but at the same time, glossing over the stuff that does need more focus and explanation for what happened, or just that feel like they get rushed through, like the whole getting the Heart back and them doing this.

The whole Wallflower thing... I'm not even disappointed she got to do something because I'm more still trying to parse just what happened and how, plus the whole, memories coming back thing either missing out on describing something we should be seeing, or not working the way we know they should. Again, we've been over the hole, story over-explains thing but, this is just, surreal in how much is not getting shown.

Okay, I think a better way to articulate it is, we are still getting the kind of over done, borderline melodramatic at times focus on how people are feeling and why, only here... we are missing basic details on the actual, on screen actions being taken. Now, maybe it's more a personal preference thing and me just having spent soooo dang long lately going back through The Cosmere that I am used to Sanderson's "Clear pane of glass" approach to writing (Which granted has always been how I saw the way Prose should be done, I just didn't really have a good way to describe it till now) But, yeah I get what the story was going for, and it very much could have worked, but I spent too much of the scene going 'wait... what... how... huh?' about details that should have been very clearly shown. And then at the end, when we get a moment that feels like it really should get a lot more focus and lot more of that detail going on, we don't and they just do all the necklace grabbing and swapping and Gigantomaxing Megalon in no time at all. Which is good for the story needing to trim stuff but is kind of changing gears so fast it caused a bit of grinding, and maybe going just a bit too far the other way.

That said, Frostbite is done for and Megs gets to set things on fire so Irys can kick some epic levels of ass..... HELL YEAH!

and the free-ankylosaur wasted no time rolling into a ball to literally launch himself up at the giant's face using their arm as a ramp to collide with Eurus' cheek.

And for all the critique I just gave...... you then go and do something this epicly awesome and I cannot stay mad at you at all story!

“Tell them the plan!” Aria Blaze shouted to Sunset Shimmer,

Wait.... tell who the plan? If the trio of Fun didn't know the plan, why insta-max Megalon?

consideration towards the last time he grabbed a member of the party, the cyborg remembered to hold a hand up and wave it in a non-threatening gesture

Gigan continuing to be the smartest one of the bunch.... yes this includes you Book Horse!

Princess Twilight saw her mentor running alongside her; radiating magic flaring up more than it had before to protect them both.

Momlestia FTW!

Didn’t change the fact this was her doing at the end of the day.

Really, aside from the whole, you being an idiot thing, I'm more just disappointed at a clear uber-nerd apparently never having seen Star Wars, or if you have, failing to notice the blatentness of how Sith you ethereal buddy was talking. He pretty much won you over with "Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies!"

Both grabbed onto the windigo's arm about to slit the other Twilight’s throat and pulled it away safely

..... okay, once you are at the 'claws sunk into the flesh' stage, how to pull that arm away 'safely'?

Zephyrus' smile vanished as he was torn apart in every way imaginable, rending asunder the manifest form of Frostbite Sparkle with him.

Taste the Painbow Motherfucker!

Good riddance! Now, time to get the gang together and teach the big guy a lesson.

The distant glimmer of the Element of Magic’s crystal flickered in the dark void as the portal closed up behind it. Not a tear was shed over it as the others arrived on scene.

You do still have six, and that's what they were built to run off of.... plus there is no way that thing isn't coming back. But I get the idea, it's not as important as saving a life and fighting etc.... Just noting how for me, not really something I'd be worried about. Still, three down, one to go!

And that seems a good spot to give it a break for a bit, been too long working on this one.... more to follow hopefully soon!

[Seraphem]

Okay part two, three assholes down, one idiot seemingly mortally wounded but we all know how this goes, six geodes accounted for, one lost in limbo... for now... and on big ol' one armed bug boi about to set things on fire! Also, since I'm on a Stormlight reference kick, someone get The Lopen over here to teach Megs some one-armed kaiju jokes!

but Eurus had more than enough power to still cause some damage even with the dampening effect.

Yeah that's the thing with energy mitigation, it's percentile based, so if you start with a high enough amount of it, even going through a full tenth thickness still leaves enough to mess things up.

And while he was not empowered by the loss of Zephyrus, Eurus did sense it.

Why would he be? Yeah, we've seen them absorb the remnats of a felled one to gain some power, but Zeph was already pretty torn up, plus, shouldn't the loss weaken Eurus now since they had a bolstering effect on each other just by being near?

the cyborg eagerly whirled his remaining hand-drill in a taunt as he charged forward with it extended in a ridiculous manner; still spitting napalm the whole way

Keeping the big guy distracted so Irys can go have a snack... nice.

And man nor giant alike had a hard time focusing when two giant angry bugs were crawling over and stinging their faces.

You are not wrong, and a hate you for making me think of this in those terms.

A mesh of vines and root work surging up from underfoot to literally allow the group to surf downtown to get closer

First, awesome, second.... why are you getting closer!? It's a big target, I don't think you need to get point blank to hit it!

The symbol for ‘Eta’ stenciled across Irys’ restored wings was shining brightly, complimenting a dim, but present flickering illumination across her brother’s form.The echo of the emblem of the ‘Alpha’ beast shown back at Eurus from Anguirus’ crown of horns.

Oh hell yeah!!!!!

The glimmering brilliance atop the floral mass across Battra's brow shone like a sun and combined.

Okay, getting closer to set this up is worth it, simply for the awesome factor!

“And that is more about the bonds and magic in them, than any crystal could help you with.”

You're a few seasons from not even needing the Elements to bust out the Rainbow of Light, but you did good Purple Smart.

What would happen when two Elementless Bearers of the same type joined a chorus with a bunch of empowered Bearers, a millennia old gestalt pony-turned-human of an alicorn, a Wood Nymph, and three sea sorceresses also turned human who were also a millennia old in a different way?

Given you aren't factoring in a projection of the sliver of the Eldritch being Yog Pin'koth's consciousness given form by mortal minds needing to cloak the raw chaos of the being in a physical form to spare their own sanity, anything could happen given how huge a variable that is.

Look, that is the best answer I have for The Pink One if we aren't just assuming this is taking place actually in The Cosmere where I can just assume she's an Avatar of Whimsy and call it a day. And the fact we are on... at least some version of Earth... right now means it can't be, since the one hard and fast rule Brandon has been adamant about is that while Earth might exist in that universe, it will never be referenced, and would be somewhere in a whole other galaxy...hence why the Skyward series very clearly is not set in the Cosmere since it references Earth.

Not Harmony, but something new. A glimpse of something else different and yet the same in power.

Something beyond Harmony even..... Adonalsium? Wat no different but same in power.... huh.... whichever Shard this is, it's got to have Cultivation as one of it's halves, but what about the other..... Preservation maybe?

was cheerfully running up the beach line, waving his now restored arm with the metal components even back.

Yeah that much Regrowth, Cultivation is involved that said...... would Regrowth, or any sort of Investiture based healing fix mechanical parts like that? Huh...... given the mechanics... as long as they saw that as their true self at the deepest level, it wouldn't just heal back an organic arm but... can it create metal...... or huh, if you get someone with the Surge of Transformation involved it would be very easy to deal with that....

Either way, yup, yay everyone getting healed, even the idiots! And hell yeah sending that last asshole into orbit before blowing his ass up!

The sound of two breaths did however catch his attention and he groaned before reaching down to pick two bodies up.

Yeah, them pulling through was obvious, and now Gigan.... "Oh damnit... now I'm going to have to carry the damn meat sacks and stand around while they all get emotional and irrational at each other."

one single restaurant had managed to survive the devastation that had leveled a huge section of the town.

Not-Pony Joe's? Post stop the apocalypse donuts?

inside a miraculously intact Waffle House.

I... this..... can't...... dying....... goddamnit Tarb! Okay that.... that might be favorite joke in this whole arc... because of COURSE it's a Waffle House that is still open after all this!

Irys was scarfing down thawed hotdogs and bacon to a degree one would wonder where a lean woman like her put it all.

Stupid ultra fast metabolisms......

Or, technically speaking, Pinkie had the strength and vigor to keep going like a giant energizer bunny

Only fair, I mean, she did do the least actual combat and had the most time to rest up after her bit, so least she could do after spending so long AWOL is make everyone some food

Evidently it had become a running gag to send him out to pick up orders from the guard once everypony figured out how much he could haul.

On ship, it was whoever was the lowest in the pecking order.... except during that one very stupid "No fast food on the ship!" flail from the XO when he flipped out over some dumb-ass leaving a McDonalds cup sitting in an angle iron on the smoking sponson. Then it was whoever was the best at sneaking the most food in past the Quarterdeck watch. Which turned out to be me most of the time.

"The magic wave worked on machinery, somehow,"

Good old handwavium! Eh, chalk it up to Spiritual Realm mumbo jumbo.

"The magic wave worked on machinery, somehow,"

Eh, guessing ambient magic is just so high it's running off that, give it a bit for the thaumic decay to bring it back down below the activation threshold. And just be glad it's not high enough to lock the Kaiju in Big Mode.

“You didn’t happen to get any glimpses of future sight when you slept recently to tell us what to do,

Tia...... stop hoarding the Atium!

“Considering you’re asking me this after I downed a cup of coffee Young Miss Pie made me?”

Okay.... if it was THAT Coffee... she'd be ripping new holes in reality on her own. (Puppyverse joke, turns out the Pie Family have a top secret family coffee recipe that only they can handle without vibrating themselves to atoms.... she used it to keep Cadance going during the whole Sombra attack on the Crystal Empire.. and Luna made it her mission to get her hooves on a cup of it, no matter that there is an entire Guard division formed specifically to make sure all coffee she gets access to is decaff for a reason...)

For the second time in the month, Adagio had to be restrained from lunging at the face of Twilight Sparkle;

You can't wait for the victory noms to be over before doing this?

Possibly in case something necessitated their use, but more likely just to have them at the ready on impulse.

Eh, worst case, Sonata slaps Dumb-Twi for all this, doubt anything rainbow laser worthy is going to happen at this point with those two.

Battra caught an aside glance by Megalon and X, as Junior did Gigan, and Anguirus did Irys

The Hunters have far, far better reasons for what they did, and did far, far less damage. They've earned this.

And as much as I love the whole "Wow we are a reeeeeaaaaaly forgiving group" mentality.... those two are just so freaking incompetently annoying that while I don't want them to suffer or anything for this..... I just want them to go away.

"So I'm not going to say I forgive you, so you'll remember for the rest of yours.... Because I never want to see you again."

,,,,,,,, you know what....... fair enough. Yeah, that is... a completely fair response from her and, I kind of like going that way. The focus is more on Sonata then the Blunder Twins and this is as much about her dealing with her own past as anything about them, and it goes to the most important part of why I prefer the MLP/Steven Universe take of getting the villain to just stop being an asshole over vanquishing them in general, without in anyway over looking what a right pair of catastrophically gullible twits those two were.

Yeah, I like taking this route.

The fact they just shut up and listened was one of the main reasons Adagio Dazzle and Aria Blaze's fists relaxed

"Okay, looks like they've had enough sense beaten into them to not make this worse by being even further idiots"

"I thought... I was like her, and that would make me a hero,"

You have a very screwed up idea on what 'hero' means if you think most of what you did, and the creepy voice with the clearly evil and creepy aura was a good idea. Again not questioning your motives, just.... your base level competence.

stepped out for the long walk home so they could live again.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

So yeah needless to say, was not really a fan of these two.... getting me to care about Wallflower is already an uphill battle, and this.... yeah pushed them as just too willfully stupid about what was going on for me to feel any sympathy for them falling for any of this to the extent they did. But, as the fact I gush endlessly about The Cosmere, yet keep comparing these to to a character in it that I have the same "you caused all of this through your own idiotic incompetence, I am not feeling sorry for you now that you are the one paying the cost for your idiocy rather then others" issues with, yeah, not a huge deal overall and it happens, just characters that really did not work for me. Plus this is fully on the Venli level of "I don't care about this idiot, can they please just stop wasting screen time over anyone else I'd rather be following" and nowhere near Zane the Emossassin "I resent the story itself for inflecting them on me" levels of issues with them.

At long last, Harmony could feel she had succeeded in both that and other matters.

What if we used that magic on a physical wound on the world? If increasing use of the Elements and other magic had already begun reawakening some of the latent but dormant magic of this world, what if we gave it a huge kick-start of specifically creation based magic?

Ummmm.... Twilight...... last time I saw someone 'kickstart' this worlds magic, it result in Sunset having to ascend to literal godhood to keep the universe from ripping itself apart via her divine will. While more realms with a Church of the Divine Bacon Horse is by no means a bad thing.... this might be something to be careful with....

“Besides, if I wanted explosives, I could just visit an armory!”

I'll take things everyone in that room has already repressed ever hearing for $300!

“Hey! Summer’s coming up and Ms. Daisy already agreed to hire me as a lifeguard! I’m unemployed if I don’t fix that camp and town up!”

Heh...... Good to have Sonata back!

loaned Earth Pony strength similar to, though not quite to the level of Applejack, partially lifting the siren off the ground and shaking her.

Really..... don't need that explanation, it's still Pinkie Pie.

So, I'm getting that Twilight is trying to Channel all this backed up magic into the usual "World healing wave" that the Elements tend to bust out but.... I gotta question her logic. "Dark and Light magic are just two sides of the same coin, so if Dark magic can destroy all this stuff, then pumping a bunch of Light magic about can fix it"..... it makes sense on a metaphyscial level, less so on a practical one. It is a LOT easier to break something then it is to repair it and just raw, unleashed power tends to only be good at one of those, at least when it comes to things without their own building plans and construction tools prepacked in DNA.... then again they have Celestia with them and I do maintain her and Luna would be Bondsmiths... and this kind of "Just pump Investiture into it and watch it fix itself" thing is actually explicitly one of their talents....

Broken concrete started to knit itself back together, torn off chunks of buildings moving off the ground and situating themselves back into place, the town starting to come alive and restore itself.

Okay.... I'm just kind of confused why this needed it's whole separate scene of set up rather then just being part of the usual "OFC obliterates the baddie then fixes the damage they caused" event all in one. I get it's likely to show off the whole, all of them being selfless about giving up their powers but.... it doesn't really work when we've already had this scene from half of them, and.... I really doubt anyone is actually concerned this would happen so it's not really generating any tension.

it's not so much the scene is bad as, given all the established talk about the story kind of needing to pare down on the words used, it feels unnecessary amid everything else going on.

Monster X nodded and repeated the gesture, "By orders or wishes or heat of the moment choices, I promise I will never fight any of you again."

This scene though? this I like! Also, well..... that could make things kind of awkward for their boss.... then again that assumes he doesn't have some larger plan that gets around that easy enough.... and he does still have quite a few henchkaiju to use, they are just a lot more limited in their potential.

, "I solemnly swear I will never try and bite a chunk out any other of your group ever again."

There is an oath that any Fae or lawyer would love to be expected to hold to with how many blatant loopholes it has.

"You literally didn't do anything but play babysitter most of this venture!"

He's not wrong......

spurring Godzilla to repeat a motion he had seen both humans and some equestrians do by slapping his hand over his face

And Godzilla learns the power of the facepalm/hoof!

Grogar was pure destruction, once for benevolent purposes and then later he lost his way... But he never created anything.

Ah, full on Sauron/Morgoth situation. Fair enough. Though, seriously dude, git good, even Ruin could create things so long as he saw them as tools that would allow for greater Ruin in the long run..... though then again this does come down to what you mean by "Create" as it could be said what he was doing was just altering what already existed I guess....

But.... huh the Windigos being creations of Harmony that got corrupted by Grogar..... very interesting take here, I kind of like it.

Grogar bastardized their echo to spite me, as he has every other one he twisted,

Meanwhile, being a petty dick is more Odium's thing... Ruin could be but generally only when he had nothing better to do, Odium will go out of his way to do things in a less effective but more drama queenly dickish way just because he's a dick.

What i'm trying to say here is, wow I can't wait to see Grogar get a Godzilla sized kick to the nuts.

One of only four beings besides Harmony herself which could open Tambelon and release Grogar if the need came.

It's gonna be Twilight, isn't it? Purple Smart is gonna get tempted to be a bit too curious about things me thinks.

"You'd be upset if your daughter died," Bagan stated plainly.

Seriously I love the interactions between these two, and showing more and more that Bagan..... really isn't evil, he does care, he's just spent so long convincing himself he doesn't, and soaking in his nihilism to the point he just can't bring himself to give it up, I am still kind of wondering if releasing Grogar isn't some elaborate suicide attempt a la Morpheus from The Sandman. An ancient being who sees that things have changed, and knows they need to change with it, but is so unable, or unwilling to do so they see the only option as letting themselves be killed and replaced by a successor who can.

I fully get why Harmony is spending this much effort on him, there is a core of decency there, a part of him that remembers being a guardian instead of a destroyer. He's not doing all this out of hatred, or spite, or anything like that, he sees it as simply a duty he has to fulfill

"And yet those humans just now. The human Bearers. They gave it up, not knowing if it would be permanent or not...."

...... okay I see why that scene was needed, it just still feels kind of clunky in how it played out.

If they achieved their dreams of godhood, no planet, system, or universe would have been enough

I do wonder just how accurate this is, something actively going on, something he thought would happen? Was it really widespread, or just a few idiots that could have been made example of without nuking half the planet?

"Well, one way or another the heroes have certainly set some great things in motion for the human realm. That world is never going to be the same,"

The Divine Bacon Horse cometh!

-Just this once…-

Where's Pattern when you need him! he'd love this lie!

When she saw the thoughts in his head, she had the very strong suspicion he wouldn't remain her ex too much longer; especially when it was her turn to smooch him this time.

Okay.... WTF story...how... I made the Pattern joke sure but then you se this up...... now we really need him!
"NO MATING!"

Also now I had to make the Pattern quip becuase I already made one and can't use the other joke..... eh screw it "Whoa... he's into that? Oh yeah, we are totally hooking back up!"

if she needed to extend her protections to the Hunters and keep them from returning to Zenith if they were in danger for making such vows.

No, Bagan.... he really does not feel like the "You have outlived your usefulness" type. Plus, I'm sure he can come up with ways to use them that don't pit them against the others.

“I will reclaim them if I have need of them…. Someday.”

Like say..... when it's time to unleash Grogar and you want some reliable warriors ready to help deal with him once he's fulfilled his purpose?

“You’d really trust me to walk amongst your creations?”

“... Perhaps supervised.”

Fair enough.... "and yes it will The Pink One! She is beyond either of our understandings so you won't be able to fool her easily!"

“Centuries watching without action and now you wish to break a self-imposed rule… It seems, you are not immune to change as well…. Until later.”

And, at the same time..... Bagan is actually helping Harmony learn to change, to find a balance between Bagan's over action, and her own near total inaction.

Seriously......... these scenes between these two, the growth and exploration of them and their dynamic, how much they are forcing the other to change.... damn I love these scenes!

“Snow’s over! Heroes win!”

So doth decree the avatar of Yog'Pinkoth!

Wow that is.... that is the end....... okay then was wondering how we still had that much left but, the entire last 1/3 of the progress bar is art..... sweet!

So yeah, overall loved the ending, few bits I wasn't utterly in love with, but overall.... I do like how Wallflower and Noob-Twi were dealt with and how the focus was on Sonata, not them. The Defenders and Hunters coming together was amazing..... again does feel like for all the story has gotten in the habit of overdoing it with the word usage, the actual downfall of the last Windigos happened kind of quickly, but still satisfying to see them finally go down.

Not going to hash out issues with the arc as a whole in detail,it was ambitious but, tried to do too much all at once and so some parts felt drawn out or not needing the focus they got, while others really needed more focus to balance things out.... but it all came together in the end!

Now go read some Cosmere so you can understand all those utterly hilarious and/or completely sublime (hey you can't prove otherwise till you get the context can you?) referencing. But overall, thanks for sticking this out despite the criticisms and keeping on going with this amazing story! Looking forward to where this goes next!

[Swordfighter125]

The arc is finally over. And the next one is coming soon. This is gonna be good

[Devonlui]

11627446
A way my grandma has kept her back health has been to strengthen her back muscles, try working out just enough to make some gains, should help

[CalvinZilla]

This finale was great! I am starting to detect hints of Bagan x Harmony, which is something I never thought would happen. So, are the Hunters staying on EG!Earth for good? Gloriosa/Gigan/Adagio is adorable. I hope the next arc will include lots of the characters who have been on the afterburner, like Rodan, Cadence, the other Elements, Discord, and especially Xenilla.
The fight was good, although Eurus wasn't quite as awe-inspiring as I hoped.

Skimming the whole arc makes for a good read, but still long. I give it a 7.5/10. It's got some absolutely amazing moments, but is only offset by the length.

[Evowizard25]

I'd say this chapter is definitely an improvement over the last one. Eurus's fight lasted just as long as it needed to. It was fun seeing the kaiju fighting something that dwarfs them. He had a good sense of presence and the battle itself was a good read. I love the waffle house settle down. Not just because of the cute interactions but it was just nice to see everyone just relax after everything in this arc.

I will also say that I love how Sonata handles her confrontation with Wallflower and SciTwi. She has every right to be mad and not want to ever see them again, but I appreciate the fact that you brought up that she also caused suffering to others. There is a good parallel there that I do really like. Still glad they didn't get off scott free though.

Now there is the issue with Zephryus's death. It just sorta... happens, but then again it was overshadowed by the gem throw. *deep breath*

Why didn't either Celestia and Twilight just use magic? Twilight can multi-task with her spells. She's done it multiple times with her biggest being in season one. Heck, it could have been a humorous 'fuck you' to Zephyrus with him doing a:

"Haha, you have to choose one. Now you... oh right, they have magic... I didn't think this through."

Sort of moment.

While I do get why it happens, to have the scene with Bagan and Harmony, but it didn't feel like it made sense.

Now I will say that the moment between Bagan and Harmony was utterly fantastic character work, especially for Bagan. It was a great way to show his mindset, what he values, and how he's come with his conversations with Harmony. It was brilliant. I just didn't feel like 'how' this scene happens made sense to me.

Outside of that frustration, I really did like the conclusion to this arc. As well, gonna be biased as all, absolutely loved the segment at the end with Starlight. Then again, as a big Starlight fan, that was a given. XD I am still happy overall with this chapter and I can't wait to see what happens next in this story. Keep up the excellent work.

[Dragon-from-down-under]

who's excited for the new Godzilla movie: GODZILLA MINUS ONE

[Dragon-from-down-under]

just curious, how would kiryu/ (54 goji) react, or interact, with the new minus one godzilla.

Two questions:
1. does anyone asides twilight and the (Terran) kaiju cast know that jr and xen still technically have a grandfather
the second question is just a scenario that plays in my head, (Not asking for anything just curious about this one)
2. How would Blade, luna, those that know Jr and Xen (exempt Terran kaiju) react to Kiryu circumstance of "Ghost in the machine"

[FallenAngel2012]

Hah. Taking a page out of a John Lennon song.
WAAAAARRR IIIIIIS OOOOVER Iiiiiiiiif Yoooooou waaaaaant Iiiiit Waaaaaaarrrr iiiiiis oooover. Nooooooowww
A great finale and post credit of this Arc. Honestly like the whole Waffle Restaurant scene was the best, seeing the Sirens grow as people was great especially their reaction to Sci-twi. By not forgiving her and Wallflower but still don’t want vengeance on them either. That was great.

"I can't ask them to forgive me, and that's gonna motivate me for the rest of my life," Sonata shook her head, "So I'm not going to say I forgive you, so you'll remember for the rest of yours.... Because I never want to see you again."

Loved this
A bit confused on the Bagan and Harmony scene. Not sure why he took the Element Crystal. But I still liked their interactions with Harmony.
It’s over! Everyone can go home!