I: Valus
I
Valus
“Murderer,” Twilight hissed.
Celestia flinched, but made no effort to deny the claim. She took a step forward the bleeding, battered, irate effigy of power that was once her student.
“Twilight, you need to understand—”
“MURDERER!” she shrieked in the Royal Canterlot Voice. She fired a salvo of white-hot magical bolts at Celestia. “I’LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR ON THEIR NAMES I’LL FIND A WAY!”
The attacks bounced harmlessly off a magical golden shield. Celestia continued to slowly make her way towards Twilight, speaking all the while. “They were dead either way, you know. All of Equestria would be nothing but ashes right now If I hadn’t sacrificed them. Would you have had me be responsible for the death of six, or six million?”
“NOPONY NEEDED TO DIE AT ALL!” Twilight teleported a few dozen yards back and focused on the ground. There was a series of deafening cracks as several giant chunks of stone rose up in the air. “I FOUND ANOTHER WAY! YOU KILLED THEM ALL FOR NOTHING! YOU TRIED TO KILL ME FOR NOTHING, YOU VILE, LYING, BACKSTABBING SNAKE!”
Celestia paid no heed to the insults, nor to the several tons of rock now hovering over her. She simply kept walking forward and talking in the same, steady voice. “You have no idea how much it hurt. You’ve all done so much, and here I repay you by betraying your trust and throwing you to the wolves. I don’t expect you to understand, and I certainly don’t expect you to forgive me, but maybe in a few hundred years—”
“BRING THEM BACK!” Twilight compressed the boulders down into smaller chunks, pouring magical energy into them and bringing them to volatile states. “BRING THEM BACK OR FINISH THE JOB AND KILL ME!”
“I’m not going to kill you, Twilight,” Celestia said. Her shield turned opaque, preventing the golden, glowing chains she was pulling out from being seen. “And you know full well that I can’t restore the dead. The harmonic balance must not be disturbed, not for anything or anything. Besides, you knew you were going to have say goodbye eventually—”
Twilight screamed. She screamed long and hard. It was a chilling sound—like the wail of a banshee infused with pure, undiluted grief. The air around her shimmered with waves of heat, and Twilight’s mane and tail suddenly exploded into flame. Her coat changed to a stark white, and she looked down at Celestia with literal fire in her eyes.
“I DIDN’T EVEN GET A CHANCE!” Her tears sizzled and evaporated before they could fall down her face. “THEY WERE GONE BEFORE I EVEN KNEW WHAT HAD HAPPENED! ALL BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU, THE ONE WHO PUSHED ME TO MAKE FRIENDS IN THE FIRST PLACE! THE ONE WHO I CONFIDED MY HOPES, DREAMS AND FEARS TO! THE ONE CONVINCED ME TO OPEN MY HEART, ONLY THEN TO TURN AROUND AND SHATTER IT INTO OBLIVION!”
Celestia’s composure finally began to crack. The golden chains faltered as her lower lip quivered.
“Twilight…”
“I HATE YOU!” The deadly rocks around them now vibrated with ominous hums. “I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU! ALL YOU’VE EVER DONE IS USE US! YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING YOURSELF! WHY DOES A GODDESS WHO CONTROLS THE SUN NEED ANYPONY’S HELP FOR ANYTHING?!”
The rocks were now pure white and emitting a high-pitched screeching noise.Twilight and Celestia stared at each other at a momentary impasse, neither one willing to back down. Twilight finally spoke again, but this time, it was in a venomous, seething whisper.
“I’m done with you, you spineless, self-righteous whorse. Your precious harmonic balance is beyond me now, but one day, I’ll find a way to pierce the Veil. Do you hear me?! I don’t care how long it takes, or what I have to do! I’ll put the ‘gifts’ you’ve given me to good use, and when once I’ve got them back… I’m coming back for you.”
Celestia threw the golden chains at Twilight. But before they could land, she disappeared in a magenta flash.
“NO!” Celestia yelled.
And then all the rocks detonated at once.
Adrenaline coursed through Twilight’s veins as she jolted awake. She opened her eyes wide and looked all around, breathing heavily as sweat dripped down from her brow. She suppressed the familiar urge to bolt in a random direction and looked up at the sun to see how long she’d slept.
“Wow, almost an hour.” She yawned and rolled her neck. “I must’ve been really tired.”
Twilight was beneath a solitary tree in the plains south of the mighty structure where she’d met Dormin. She’d decided to call the Shrine of Worship, as there hadn’t been any name for it in anything she’d read... or a name for anything beyond this point, really. She was in uncharted waters now, completely sailing into the unknown, and the notion was so unfamiliar that it set her ill at ease.
The air was calm as she took off again and made her way south. The clear skies were empty, much like the majority of the lands she’d seen thus far. Not even any birds were about that she could see, although that might’ve just been due to the time of day. The only sound she heard was the wind rushing past her, and so she was left to her own musings.
Half an hour later, Twilight reached a set of bluffs that had a narrow canyon carved halfway up the cliffside. She could see that some sort of building had once been built there, but only its shattered ruins remained. Fallen pillars and crumbling foundations were the only testament to its existence, and thick curtains of ivy now covered the majority of the ancient walls.
Twilight circled around once before landing just before the ruins. She double-checked her Element to see where it was pointing, and sure enough, it shone directly into the canyon above. She clicked her tongue a few times as she thought how to go about her task.
“If it’s called a ‘colossus’, it’s probably gonna be big.” Twilight scratched her chin. “How big, though? Ursa Major big? Tatzlwurm big? Amethyst Great Wyrm big? A sense of scale would be nice, here. I can’t really make any kind of plan without more information, and I’d rather not go in blind. Maybe I should go back and ask Dormin for more info…”
She started to turn around back to the north, but after another minute’s consideration, she stopped and gave a half-hearted shrug.
“Meh, I’ve beaten worse things with less. I’ll just put up the usual spells and take it out before it has a chance to do anything.”
Twilight’s horn flashed several times as she took a few minutes to prepare her normal defensive spells. Her body glowed several colors in response, and then she completely vanished from sight. She mumbled softly to herself as she mentally ticked the list off.
“Intangibility, Shining Aegis, Drain Sphere, Armor of the Archmage, Mirror Veil, Planar Freedom, Sigil of Order, Selective Repulsion, Prismatic Shield, and Greater Invisibility. There we go! That should do it.”
Now suitably protected, Twilight rose into the air and confidently flew up to the canyon above. It was shallower than she’d first thought—only going in about a mile before narrowing out. The ground was flat and barren, and only a few trees and rocks lined the sheer cliff walls. There wasn’t anything notable she could see, so she perched on a small boulder and looked all around.
“Okayyyyy… so where exactly is this—”
The ground shook. The trees quivered and trembled. A coldness crept over Twilight, and she froze stock still as an enormous foot suddenly filled her vision. A seventy-foot tall bidepal monstrosity strode right past her, its footsteps creating violent tremors and causing the ground under to crack and crumble. It was a construct—that much certain—made up of rock and abandoned architecture and covered in patches of rough fur. Its glowing blue eyes only held the barest sign of intelligence, and it carried a cudgel the size of a house in its right hand, An aerie of hawks circled above it like a black cloud.
Twilight stood there for a few seconds, wide-eyed and incredulous. She worked her mouth several times before managing to voice what was on her mind.
“How… the living hay… did I not see that?!”
She didn’t have much time to ponder that question, for at that moment, her body flickered and became visible again. Loud snapping sounds went off as the colorful sparks ran down her profile again
“Hey!” she tried casting her wards again, but to no avail. “What’s going on?”
“The colossi disjoin all magic within their vicinity…” a pair of familiar voices said. “Only with your Element will you be able to slay them…”
“Dormin?” Twilight looked up and all around, but the only other thing around was the colossus. “Where are you?”
“Hold up your Element to reflect the light on your foe,” Dormin said. “Its vitals shall be revealed…”
“That doesn’t answer my—whoa!” Twilight stumbled from the constant shaking of the footsteps. She jumped into the air to keep herself steady. “And how exactly do you expect me to hurt it without magic? That’s kind of my main strong point, and I didn’t exactly bring any weapons with me!”
The Element of Magic glowed in response. Twilight looked down in surprise, and saw that her right forehoof had become encased in white, crackling light. The smell of ozone suddenly filled the air, and the beam elongated and flattened before tapering off into a fine, pointed tip humming with energy.
Twilight blinked. “Well, that’s new.”
“A warning,” Dormin said. “The blade requires great energy and focus to sustain. Only summon it when you are about to strike.”
As if on cue, Twilight felt a great pressure suddenly creep up behind her eyes, similar to whenever she chain-casted several powerful spells. She released her focus much in the same manner, and the sword immediately faded away.
“You know, this info would’ve been nice to have BEFORE I was standing in front of the moving mountain,” Twilight said to the air. “How about next time you give me the advice and tools for the job ahead of time, hmm?”
There was no reply—only the wind and the colossus’ thundering footsteps.
Twilight ran her hoof down her face. “I’ll take that as a no.”
She figured there wasn’t any need for subtlety in approaching the colossus. It seemed perfectly content to continue on its merry way down the dead-end ravine, so she just took wing and joined the circling hawks above. They paid her no mind as she looked down at the colossus, analyzing and searching for any obvious weak point.
“How am I going to—oh, right, the Element.” Twilight concentrated and felt her necklace grow warm. The sunlight gathered and shot out, revealing a bright blue sigil etched atop the its head.
“Bingo,” she said.
Suddenly, the colossus looked up. Silence reigned a moment as the two locked eyes, then the beast let out a deafening bellow.
Twilight lightly smacked her forehead. “Of course.”
The colossus swung its cudgel. Twilight saw it coming and flew out of the way, but the weapon’s size and momentum created enough wind to blow her away. She tumbled through the air, falling several dozen feet before managing to right herself and retreat to a safe distance.
“Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!” She tried casting her wards again on reflex, but they instantly broke with faint popping sounds. “Come on, work! A stupid disjunction aura shouldn’t be able to unravel my spells!”
The colossus stomped after her, cudgel raised and ready to strike. It loomed before Twilight and swung, but she dodged again to the side. The weapon smashed the ground with titanic force, sending a shudder through the spindly trees and boulders on the edge.
Twilight sneered. “You think an oversized club is enough to intimidate me?”
The colossus wound up again, but she flew out of its range and out of its aura. She then ascended high into the air, out of the canyon and through the clouds until she was nothing more than a lavender dot.
“Do you know who I am?!” Twilight’s voice magically boomed into the tiny canyon below. “I am Twilight Sparkle! Goddess of Magic, Princess of Equestria, Defender of Harmony, Last of the Six! I have purified the Night! I have tamed Chaos! I have destroyed Hatred and Fear! I have even conquered Evil itself! A dim-witted construct like you is NOTHING compared to the powers I’ve laid low, and I’ll not allow some stupid little aura, or ANYTHING else to stand in my way!”
Twilight's horn glowed bright, then brighter still, until finally it resembled a second sun in the sky.
There was a sound like screeching metal, faint at first, but growing louder and louder until it drowned out everything else. A disturbance in the air formed just before Twilight that stretched all the way down to where the colossus stood, who seemed to take no notice. It just simply stood there with its cudgel ready, waiting for her to come back down.
The disturbance in the air thickened. Twilight gathered more and more magic, chanting all the while in a powerful voice. Multicolored sparks began to form. The energy made her hair stand on end. Her entire body shook from the strain, but still she continued on with a will tempered by the fires of Tartarus.
Finally, she was ready. The spell was fully charged. She finished the last part of the incantation and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“SCATTER!”
A pulse like lightning travelled down the heavenly pillar. It hit the colossus dead-on…
…and did absolutely nothing.
Twilight’s mind blanked. Her jaw went slack as she went limp in the air.
“What.”
She was so shocked by the spell’s failure that she didn’t realize that the colossus was stretching back its right arm. It took careful aim, then hurled its train-sized weapon straight at her. It rocketed towards her with a sound like a motor churning through water.
Twilight didn’t even bother to dodge. The weapon hit her with a crunch and then continued on for a little over a mile before crashing down into the plains with an earth-shattering thud. It bounced a few times, tearing up the grass and dirt and rock alike before finally embedding itself several feet into the ground. The dust and debris settled a short while later, and then... all was silent.
The colossus stared out into the plains where its cudgel now lay. It stood stock still for a few seconds, as if unable to decide whether or not to go after the weapon. Whatever cognizance guided it didn’t seem to think that it wasn’t worth the effort, though, so it turned around and began heading back down the canyon...
…only to stop when it heard a strange sound—like a motor churning through water.
The colossus’ own cudgel came sailing back into the canyon and struck the beast in the small of the back. It was lifted off its feet by the force and flew back several hundred feet before colliding into the far canyon wall in a great explosion of rock and dust. It roared as it became buried in an avalanche of falling stone, kicking and struggling to get free.
Twilight teleported into the entrance of the canyon. She looked like a living nightmare—her horn was snapped, her eyes were ruined, her jaw had been torn off, countless bones were crushed, and her clothes were soaked in her own blood. However, her injuries were swiftly mending thanks to a prismatic light shining out from within her core.
“You will not stop me,” Twilight snarled in a ghostly, dissonant voice. “You cannot stop me. Through whatever means necessary, I will get what I want… what I need.”
The colossus was still buried beneath the rubble. The only thing sticking out were its legs. Twilight saw that the back of its left calf was unarmored, and operating on a hunch, she used the Element again and discovered a second sigil there.
There was no taunting. There were no tactics. There wasn’t even any thought, really. Twilight just spread her wings and shot forward like a bullet, summoning her blade to her mid-flight. She landed on the colossus’ leg and plunged the sword into the glowing sigil.
The colossus roared. A foul, black ichor spurted out from the wound, covering Twilight and staining her clothes. She stabbed again and again and again, and then she stabbed some more for good measure. The colossus kicked and flailed all the while, causing the rocks to shift and fly all around Twilight. The sigil flickered and faded away, and she retreated before the boulders could hit her.
The colossus freed itself of the canyon wall. It got up and looked around for its attacker, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen. The cudgel was laying a few hundred feet away beside an uprooted tree, so it started to make for that. Before it could get there, though, the cudgel became encased in a magenta aura and lifted up into the air. The magic started to fade as the colossus approached, but then, the magenta aura redoubled and carried it away.
Twilight watched the colossus limp after its own weapon while hidden away on top of the bluffs. She was reminded of a dog chasing after a stick as she moved the cudgel in and out of various distances in relation to the giant.
“Looks like about a seventy-five foot radius,” Twilight mused. She worked her jaw a few times to try and get rid of the soreness. “Feels like it’s weaker at the edges, though; probably from being in continuous effect... I could unravel the fraying arcana threads, but it’ll take me a while if they’re warded, and Stompy’s not gonna just sit still while I do it… maybe I could put up a disjunction aura of my own and override his? Let’s see, rate of decay for disjunction is three-point-four-seven times ten to the negative thirteenth, diminished effect is approximately fifteen meters, which means that this aura’s been in effect for around—wow. Okay, so that’s not gonna work, but at least it narrows down who cast it in the first place...”
Twilight felt her anger slowly ebbing away as she continued to analyze the situation. It never truly went away—she’d come to terms with that long ago—but it did simmer down to a level that allowed her to actually think.
“I almost want to dispel this aura just to prove that I can.” Twilight ground her teeth and swished her tail. “It’s not gonna be efficient, though, and I just wanna get this over with... rather not get smashed again, either. I’m gonna be feeling that for a week... all right, all right. The sword and sigil thing seems to work, so we’ll go with that for now.”
Twilight led the colossus over to the cliff where she was hiding. She dropped the cudgel on the ground just below her, feeling the vibrations of the immense object hitting the ground all the way up the bluff. The colossus went right for it, oblivious of Twilight’s location. It stopped right in front of her, then bent down to pick up the weapon.
The glowing blue sigil on its head glowed brightly a few dozen feet before Twilight. She ignited her blade and prepared to leap.
You’re never going to get them back.
Twilight’s entire body locked up. The sword faded away as a violent chill ripped through her.
“No… not now…”
Dead, gone, lost forever. The unknown voice was mocking, sinister, and dripping with malice. Nothing you ever do will change that. You might as well just give up...
Twilight felt her energy being sapped away. A numbness formed in her hooves that started to creep up her legs. The colossus retrieved its cudgel and straightened back up, looking all around for her.
How long have you been searching? the voice said with a cruel laugh. How many legends have you chased, how many failures have you suffered? This is nothing but another dead end, Twilight. There’s never been anything BUT dead ends. You will fail here, just like you failed to see through Celestia’s lies. Just like you failed to save your friends. Just like you’ve failed to join them despite your best efforts—
“SHUT IT!” Twilight yelled. She grabbed onto the Element of Magic and focused. “SHUT IT, SHUT IT, SHUT IT! KEEP YOUR POISONOUS WHISPERS TO YOURSELF!”
The Element’s light spread out and covered her entire body, just like it had back against the shades Her outline flashed brightly like the sun, and the accursed voice faded away.
Twilight sighed in relief as the feeling returned to her legs. “That’s better. Now to—”
And then she noticed the large, cudgel-shaped shadow swiftly descending on her.
“Horseapples…”
She leapt off the cliff just in time. The colossus swing smashed the spot where she’d just been, taking out a chunk of the wall and causing a second rockslide. The canyon echoed with the riotous sounds of destruction as Twilight opened her wings and flew in between the colossus’ legs. She came out the other side and tried to regain her altitude, but the colossus then turned and swatted at her with its free hand.
“AAHHH!” Twilight narrowly avoided the swipe and retreated farther back. She tried to get out of range, but the colossus now had her in its sights and was swiftly chasing after her. She switched to evasive tactics instead, swooping around and using her agility to avoid being turned into a pancake.
“Gotta end this,” Twilight panted through gritted teeth. She baited the colossus into taking another swing, then pumped her wings hard and made a beeline for its head. “No more messing around!”
She buzzed over the colossus’ face and tucked in her wings, landing roughly upon its broad, furry back. The beast roared and shook itself to dislodge her, but Twilight held on and made for the top of its head. She didn’t get there, though, because then the colossus reached up with its free arm and tried to grab her. She was forced to dodge and take wing again and climb several dozen feet so she could safely figure out another plan of attack.
“Can’t use magic when near it, and all magic dies when it gets close to it.” Twilight let out a low, frustrated growl. “Fine. If I can’t use magical force to hurt it, I’ll use another force instead!”
While circling just out of reach, Twilight used her telekinesis to pick up several large boulders now littering the canyon. Each one was over twenty feet in diameter and weighed several tons. She lit them all on fire for no particular reason, and once she had a decent number gathered, she brought them all up to the same level as her and fired them at the colossus like a swarm of meteorites.
“EAT PHYSICS, BIG BOY!”
The acrid stench of charred fur filled the air as the colossus bellowed and staggered from the assault. Twilight fired each and every one of her projectiles with grim efficiency, striking it relentlessly from every direction and knocking it off-balance. The creature’s wounded leg gave out from the pummeling, and it sagged down to one knee, stunned.
Twilight saw her chance. She took careful aim, then folded her wings and dove down with her forehoof outstretched. The blazing sword formed at her command, and the weak point on the colossus’ head appeared in response. Twilight’s battlecry was lost to the wind as she collided with the beast and drove her sword deep into the sigil.
The colossus let out a deep, guttural wail. Its entire form seized up, its breath escaping it in a long, slow rattle. An explosion of black ichor sprayed out of where Twilight had struck, taking her by surprise and causing her to cough and splutter. The colossus dropped its cudgel and fell to the ground with a cacophony of crunching stone, and it shuddered one final time before going still.
Twilight jumped off and tumbled to the ground. She fell to her knees gagging and gasping as she tried to expel whatever she’d just inhaled a considerable amount of.
“The buck IS this stuff?!” Twilight wheezed in between coughing fits. “Ugh! Is it blood? Constructs don’t have blood! What the heck are these things?”
Twilight was so distracted with trying to regain her breath that she didn’t notice the darkness quickly enveloping the colossus, nor the odd black tendrils that now slithered out of the corpse’s head.
“That was sloppy,” Twilight said once she’d caught her breath. She looked towards the Shrine of Worship clearly visible off in the distance. “Gonna need to have a chat with Dormin about what these things can do before taking on the next one. This might be tricky if all of them have auras like that.…”
The tendrils were now spiraling erratically above Twilight, their ghostly forms leaving no shadows in the afternoon sun. They inched closer and closer to her without a sound.
“Good enough.” Twilight got to her hooves and brushed herself off. “Time to—”
The tendrils struck. They rushed her from all sides and entered her body with a sound like stone scraping sandpaper. Twilight cried out in alarm and tried to cast a spell, but she was still within the colossus’ aura. The tendrils fully entered her, her spell fizzled, and a thick haze fell upon her mind. She suddenly felt tired, so very, very tired, and she was only dimly aware of herself falling down, down, down…
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...They're not more Plunder Vines, perchance?
The cup you choose to fill has no bottom, Twilight...
3975790
Considering the nature of the crossover and Shadow of the Colossus, let me put it like this.
You will wish those were plunder vines just now.
I get the feeling this story will take a while if all the Colossai fights are this long, not that I'm complaining of course.
It's very awesome and even more noble than what the protagonist in the game killed them for.
I also don't think I'd wish torture on her but Celestia should pay for what she did.
Nice battle. Looks like you're basing it off normal mode and not hard mode. Darn, but still good.^_^
This is looking to be a great story!
Can't wait to see what happens!
One complaint, though.
Isn't Twilight's element a crown and not a necklace? Sorry if I'm nitpicking...
Last I checked, all those things live in or on mountains. The Colossi are mountains.
Hmmm... I can understand Celestia's point of view. The way I see it, she thought herself to have one simple choice: a few lives against millions.
As a ruler, she has to make hard decisions like that, and as horribly callous as it may sound, from a logical viewpoint Celestia did the right thing by sacrificing the Element bearers instead of letting countless thousands die. It probably hurt her terribly to do it, and she likely wishes she had had another option... But as far as she could see, there wasn't and there we go. Shit happens.
I don't believe in the idea that Celestia is actually evil or something along those lines, so this is how I chose to interpret it.
That said, Twilight's reaction is in no way exaggerated or hard to sympathize with. She's lost her friends, practically her family, of course she's going to be all fire and brimstone about it.