West Venom
This is the continuation of the story of six mares who have yet to realize their own destinies.
Shining Armor lies stricken, rendered helpless by a mysterious infection of unknown ‘Jenova cells’, but saved from the brink of death by Caspar, one of the members of the enigmatic Order of Koaxia. Now left unconscious, the guard captain's fate is left a mystery, privy only to his unexpected rescuer.
Meanwhile, Rarity, having woken from her coma and discovered strange, new powers, uses them to track down the missing Rainbow Dash, while Twilight and Pinkie Pie rush to Shining Armor's aid.
However, before they can reach her brother, another wave of chaotic energy washes over Ponyville, sending Twilight into a daze as Pinkie senses several new arrivals into the town's borders...
“The Order of Koaxia”
Chapter 10
West Venom
The two mares burst out of Carousel Boutique, all but leaping out into the street. Twilight's gaze flitted about the town’s streets and alleyways, frantically searching for any sign of the trouble that Pinkie’s sixth sense had foretold.
There wasn’t any. Ponyville’s streets were still calm and quiet, as they should have been at six in the morning, and there was not a single audible disturbance within earshot. However, despite the lack of noticeable danger, Pinkie’s perturbed expression did not fade, and the town librarian bit her lip worriedly.
“It’s coming from over there!” the pink mare suddenly exclaimed, pointing a hoof down the street to their left. Immediately taking off at a gallop, Pinkie moved so fast that Twilight could barely keep up. As the two mares sprinted down the streets, the young scholar realized with a sinking feeling of dread that Pinkie’s directions were slowly taking them in the direction of the Town Hall.
If that was where the disturbances were coming from, then there was hardly even a snowball’s chance in Tartarus that she could keep things under wraps.
The moment they reached the town square itself, Twilight’s heart dropped out of the bottom of her stomach.
Whatever hope they had of keeping this matter quiet had just been blown completely out the window - the entire place was in ruins.
The place had been completely trashed. Benches, fountains, and flower beds had been wrecked beyond all hope of saving, strewn across the ground in various states of disrepair. Vandalism ran rampant throughout the entire square, various scars of destruction marring the once-beautiful attraction.
The unicorn's jaw fell open as she surveyed the scene, unable to comprehend what could have possibly inflicted such damage. Nothing short of a natural disaster could have caused this! Her mind struggled to come to terms with what she was seeing, and the mare collapsed limply onto her rump, staring blankly ahead.
Pinkie, however, had no such compunctions. The hyperactive filly's ears perked up as she heard hints of a ruckus coming from down a particular street - lots of objects breaking, and screeching noises that didn't sound like anything a pony's vocal chords should be able to produce. "It's coming from over there!"
She took off once again in a pink blur, and Twilight barely shook herself out of her stupor in time to follow behind. As they galloped down the street, with the sounds of destruction, screams, and inequine roars growing closer and closer, the librarian realized with a jab of fear that they were rapidly approaching the residential district. As if all that wasn’t enough, the closer they drew to the source of the racket, something... else, something inside her seemed to be responding to the noise. The sensation of brushing against a hot, twisting whirlpool of malevolent energy grew inside her mind, and, although she couldn’t see them, she knew that there were a dozen distinct presences, all seething and writhing with corruption, somewhere just ahead of her.
If any of the townsponies got hurt because she had been too slow... Twilight didn't think she could live with the guilt. Desperation lent her speed, and the fuchsia unicorn easily caught up to Pinkie as the duo shot down the street.
"They're right here!" Twilight heard Pinkie shout. "My Pinkie sense is telling me it's right... over..."
The pink mare's voice trailed off completely as they rounded the corner, her jaw hanging loose as she stared at the cacophonous devastation before her.
"The horror! Oh, the horror!!!"
Roseluck was screaming - the scarlet-maned mare was running for her life as she galloped away from her home, the rose patches that she tended to lovingly every day... and the diminutive, crimson-skinned creatures that were laying waste to it.
They couldn't have been any more than three feet tall, and their bodies were ridiculously skinny, with long, sharp claws adorning fingers that extended from vestigial arms. Tiny horns jutted forth from their foreheads like some grotesque parody of a devil pony, and their beady eyes glittered with a manic lust for destruction.
Fallen Imps - the name came unbidden into Twilight's mind with no prompting whatsoever. Knowledge that had been lurking somewhere within the depths of her subconscious suddenly surged to the forefront of her thoughts, and Twilight knew.
She knew that the crimson-skinned Fallen were nothing but grunts, little more than expendable cannon fodder designed to distract soldiers and pester civilians. She knew the location of every single one of their vital points, the most efficient manner in which to dispatch large numbers of them, everything that had to do with fighting, and disposing of them.
A stab of agony lanced through her temple, and Twilight briefly felt the touch of a foreign memory brush against her consciousness, an unwelcome image flashing through her head.
-the imp's flesh parted beneath the steel of her blade as though it was made of wet tissue, and it fell before her, screaming out in-
"AUGH!"
The lavender mare nearly fell to her knees, unable to stop herself from crying out in pain. How... What had she just been hit with!?
Twilight gasped desperately for air - the pounding pressure in her head increased as her chest constricted, and the flood of knowledge pouring into her mind showed no signs of stopping. Fallen tactics, counters to their movements as a group, ways to corral them into one spot before eliminating them all in one fell swoop...
The scholar stumbled, overwhelmed by the outpouring of information, and collapsed to the ground. Pinkie Pie, however, had no such handicaps slowing her down. Unable to see Twilight struggling behind her, the party pony galloped ahead, pointing a hoof accusingly at the monsters demolishing Roseluck’s home.
“Hey!” the pink mare bellowed, her expression livid. “What the hay do you think you’re doing!? Nopony wrecks Ponyville property but ME!”
Almost immediately, a dozen pairs of glittering eyes snapped in her direction. High, chittering cries filled the air as the various imps barked at one another, pointing at the sudden, pink intrusion with their tiny, clawed hands. After a few seconds of apparent deliberation, they seemed to come to a decision almost as one and scampered towards Pinkie without hesitation, gibbering madly.
Twilight could only watch in mute horror as Pinkie charged the group of miniature monsters by herself... and then her horror turned into shocked amazement as she realized that Pinkie was holding her own.
One of the imps, armed with a wickedly sharp knife nearly as long as its comically tiny arm, took a swipe at Pinkie, screeching in a mad chitter. But the hyperactive filly ducked under the blow with preternatural speed, her mane seeming to leave a pink streak behind as it blurred through the air. One of her hooves sent the imp stumbling backwards, clutching at its broken nose, and was swiftly followed by a sudden BANG!, and the diminutive demon was sent flying through the air, leaving a shower of confetti and streamers in its wake.
The pink mare leaped over the smoking barrel of her party cannon, resuming her bullrush the instant her hooves touched the ground. “You meanies picked the wrong town to mess with!”
Pinkie had no idea how to describe it. The moment she had first laid eyes on the tiny red-skinned monsters, indignant rage had instantly overcome her - these Demon McWrecky-pants thingies dared lay their hands on her beloved home and friends!? Unforgivable!
Her rage steeled itself into iron-hard determination, and, well aware that she was doing the complete opposite of what she normally did - that is, to run away panicking and screaming “EVERYPONY FOR HERSELF!” - the baker charged forward without hesitation, knowing exactly what she had to do.
Protect her friends.
“What, you want some of this?” Pinkie rose to her hind-legs in a reasonable impression of Rainbow Dash as she hopped around from place to place, jabbing her hooves in and out randomly as she prepared to dish out even more hurt. “Come on, bring it! I’ll bite your kneecaps off!”
The moment the Fallen responded, however, it immediately became apparent she had bitten off slightly more than she could chew. Already the rest of them were moving to surround her, their weapons or claws raised and pointed at her menacingly as they chittered angrily. The imp Pinkie had sent sprawling was already staggering back onto its feet, glaring darkly at the pink filly and brandishing its knife violently.
The imps screamed, and then everything burst into movement all at once. Three of them lunged at Pinkie as the rest began circling around her. The hyperactive mare, meanwhile, transformed into an indecipherable blur. Blades and maces swiped at her, but she darted and weaved around them, dodging by the skin of her teeth. A few of them managed to land glancing hits against her, scoring tiny nicks and leaving small scratches, but Pinkie made sure to repay them in full.
Hooves and haymakers slammed into guts and faces as the enraged mare began beating the snot out of the devilish intruders with all four of her limbs. Within seconds, two of the imps lay on the ground, groaning and twitching.
Screaming in outrage, the remaining diminutive devils descended upon the mare, their weapons thrusting wildly. Several of them slammed into her with full-body tackles, knocking her to the ground. While most raced to pin her down, the largest of them leapt upon her chest, gibbering madly as it raised its spear high and prepared to drive it through Pinkie’s heart.
Seeing her friend an instant away from getting skewered was exactly the catalyst Twilight needed. Unable to stand back and watch any longer, the mare forced her way through her pained stupor, rising back to her hooves with a ferocious growl.
“Get away from her!”
As she rose back to her hooves, Twilight barely noticed the pulse of magic that surged out of her body; she was so focused on the imp getting ready to impale Pinkie. What she did notice, however, was a flash of gold on the edge of her peripheral vision. A pure white blur, radiating an astonishing amount of mana and power, shot past her, and buried itself in the chest of the imp.
The monster sailed through the air, the sheer force of the blow carrying its limp form aloft for several feet before it finally stopped, pinned to the wall behind it like some sort of macabre pinata. There was no way it could have still been alive - its limp fingers slowly loosened, its grip on the spear slipping further and further, and blood dripped from the ragged hole in its chest... and the mass of burning, vaguely sword-shaped, pure white energy that had created said hole.
Then the intangible blade of light dissipated, and the imp’s body toppled to the ground with a wet thud!, its weapon clattering away noisily. Breathing heavily, Twilight stared at the corpse with a horrified expression, unable to process what she had just done. She wasn’t alone; the other demons simply stared at the body of their dead kin... and then, almost as one, their eyes swivelled around to lock onto the mare who had done the deed.
The purple unicorn, suddenly aware of nearly ten pairs of eyes gazing intently at her, gasped as she swiftly backed up. Her horn instinctively sparked to life as the imps suddenly jumped off Pinkie and began charging right at her. “No! Stop! Stay back!”
Twilight fell into a panic - her horn glowed with power as she poured as much energy as she could muster into it, backpedaling all the while... and then she suddenly stumbled as a wave of nausea washed over her, vertigo turning her world upside down. The lavender unicorn’s horn sputtered pathetically as the spell she had been preparing fizzled out. As her throat slowly filled with bile, Twilight collapsed to her knees once again, her thoughts barely coherent. Why was this happening now; mana exhaustion had never bothered her before!
The few coherent bits of her mind that still remained raced to put together an explanation. That new spell she had used to stop the imp about to skewer Pinkie - whatever it was, it had drained her of almost all the energy she could muster on short notice, and she was tapped out now, completely helpless.
The imps descended upon her, their shrill cries piercing against her ears, and Twilight screamed, huddling down into a tiny little ball as she prayed desperately for somepony - anypony - to save her.
ZING!
There was a flash of steel. Everything suddenly stopped, and Twilight dared to open her eyes just a peek... just in time to watch the remains of the Fallen in front of her collapse to the ground in two neatly severed halves, diagonally bisected at the waist. Their eyes widening at the fate of their comrade, the remaining devils backed away swiftly, their voices high and chittering with fear. The lavender mare recoiled in horror at the grisly sight, barely choking back another scream, when she suddenly became aware of another magical signature behind her.
However, unlike the writhing, dark and corrupted presences of the miniature demons she was faced with, this new arrival's energy felt as crisp and clean as a spring day, and carried with it a feeling of rock-like steadiness and dependability. It was nowhere near as strong as her brother's, but it was more than enough to suddenly settle a slight weight on her shoulders, forcing her breathing to tighten just the tiniest bit.
That, and... the energy felt familiar.
Twilight whirled around, and was greeted by the sight of a burly, white-coated stallion clad in the signature golden armor of the Royal Guard. Though it was tricky to see at this angle, she could just barely make out the Romane numeral XIII emblazoned upon his left shoulder pauldron. The stallion stood on his hind legs, his back to Twilight and his forehooves holding onto a gladius that was still dripping with the imp's crimson ichor. His helmet had been removed, and though his poise was stoic and disciplined, it clashed horribly with the unruly brown afro that protruded from his head like a vast tumor.
The young scholar's eyes widened in recognition, and she shot forward, galloping towards the stallion.
"Rumbledown!" the lavender mare cried out. The guardpony looked up and flashed her a fierce grin as he straightened, flicking the blood off his blade with a quick swipe.
“Just can’t keep out of trouble, can ya Sparky?” Rumbledown remarked amicably as Twilight’s eyebrow twitched just the slightest bit. Ten years later, and he still remembered that nickname? “Even after so long, I’m the one still pulling your flank out of the fire when your big bro isn’t around!”
Twilight fought down the brief irritation at the soldier’s good-natured ribbing, and kept herself focused on the situation at hand. “Well, it’s great to see you and all, Rumbledown, but what are you doing here?”
“Saving your little town, duh!” The burly earth pony gave a brief mock bow, and flourished his gladius grandly as he laughed mirthfully. “Shining left us all behind to hog all the glory, as usual, so it’s up to his vice-captain and his stalwart officers like myself to pick up the slack. Royal Guard Officer Rumbledown, fifth seat of the Thirteenth Division, at your service.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “You’re an officer now? Wait, so if you’re here as one of the guard officers that’s supposed to arrive today, then that means... Oh, no... He’s here as well, isn’t he?”
“What’s happening, ‘Twily’? Last I saw you, you were just an itty bitty wittle filly barely even tall enough to reach her brother’s knees!”
The high, nasal, and extremely irritating voice slithered through her ears like a slimy eel. If Twilight had been mildly annoyed by Rumbledown’s teasing, then the irritation that surged through her head was nothing short of homicidal. Great... Slipstream is here too.
The familiar-looking white-coated pegasus she remembered from her foalhood suddenly appeared next to her in a burst of speed, his body leaving behind an indistinct blur, and brandished his katana with a condescending flourish. “Still can’t handle yourself, eh? Well, just stand back and let us Royal Guards show you how a real soldier does things!”
Before Twilight could even let out an outraged protest, the two officers blurred again. Suddenly they were behind her, their weapons bared and facing off against the remaining imps.
“I do say, good old chap,” Rumbledown began as he cracked his joints menacingly, “these little critters seem to have wrecked up the town quite a bit.”
“Well, well, we know what we do to critters who do that, don’t we, old friend?” Slipstream whipped his katana around, twirling it idly about on a hoof, and flashed his fellow officer a knowing grin.
“Indeed we do, chap.” Rumbledown answered with his own grin. “What say we... teach them a lesson?”
“I can hardly disagree.”
The duo of Royal Guards readied their weapons, and in a sudden burst of speed that nearly knocked Twilight back a few paces, charged forward.
The remaining ten imps leapt towards their new foes, screeching madly and swinging their weapons wildly. In any conventional fight, Twilight would have automatically placed her bets on any side that had the advantage of sheer numbers.
But this was a fight that featured a pair of Royal Guard Officers.
They moved unlike anything she had ever seen. Slipstream ducked underneath the first half-dozen blades sent flying in his direction in a weaving dodge that left his frame nothing but an indistinct blur, zig-zagging his way through them until he was right in the middle of the devil pack. Then, with an eager grin crossing his face, he spun around, setting his hoof on the tip of his katana’s blade.
“Spread your wings, Tsunzakigarasu!”
As he cried out, he pegasus pushed his hoof towards his blade’s hilt. Amazingly, instead of piercing through the appendage, the sword shrunk beneath the hoof’s pressure. With every inch of steel that disappeared into its hilt, the sword shot out a tiny, curved blade that spun like a miniature buzzsaw from its pommel. Soon, Slipstream was surrounded by a veritable swarm of the miniature weapons.
The guard officer weaved his hooves around in an intricate pattern, and before Twilight could even blink, the swarm of spinning blades dissolved into an indistinct blur, whirring about in a deadly maelstrom that viscerally tore the attacking monsters to bloody shreds. Screaming in shock at the sudden bloodbath, the fuchsia mare quickly averted her gaze. Her eyes, searching desperately for something else to watch, spotted Rumbledown, who was in the midst of making his own charge.
The last four Fallen had rushed him all at once, leaping into the air with their weapons raised. The earth pony guard simply stared up at them for a second, then gave a contemptuous snort and grinned. Raising his gladius upright, he placed both of his forehooves upon the handle as he called out.
“Good Morning, Tsuchinamazu!”
There was a flash of crimson light, and the soldier’s sword was replaced by something that resembled a bladed wheel. Grasping a handle on its lower half in his forehoof, Rumbledown raised the bizarre apparatus over his head in a single motion, and then slammed it into the ground with a mighty shout.
The earth itself shuddered beneath the blow. Before Twilight knew it, the entire section of grass in front of Rumbledown abruptly broke into several razor-sharp outcroppings of rock, spiking upwards and impaling the monsters with extreme prejudice. The imps stood no chance - each one run through their very centres with several inches of razor-sharp rock, they died instantly.
The violence was too much. Some small, distant part of Twilight's rational mind acknowledged that the guard officers were doing what they had to, that the imps were too much of a threat to let run loose, but the rest of her was too busy screaming and recoiling in horror at the blood being shed.
The purple mare squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to watch this travesty for any longer. It reminded her far too much of the horrific vision of Equestria’s bloody past that Celestia had shown them in Rainbow Dash’s ward, and she had absolutely no desire to relive that scene any time soon.
The noises soon died down several seconds later, and there was a brief rustle of metal as blades were sheathed. A hoof shook her shoulder, and Pinkie’s voice came comfortingly from next to her. “Twilight? It’s okay, you can look now.”
Twilight nearly rebelled against the request solely on reflex. She didn't want to have to look at the scene of carnage for even a second longer, but the analytical, rational part of her mind roughly kicked her upside the head and demanded that she pull herself together. She was Celestia's personal student, for crying out loud! A certain degree of dignity and level-headedness was expected of her!
Letting out a shaky breath, the young scholar opened her eyes, bracing herself for the sight of blood and eviscerated bodies once more. The mere recollection of the sight nearly sent another pang of nausea through her gut, but she steeled herself and forced her eyes open.
To her surprise, the bodies were gone. The blood, body parts, and viscera had all disappeared, having been replaced by some form of thin, grey ash that was swiftly lost to the wind. The debris kicked up by Rumbledown's minor earthquake was still there though, standing as the only sign that the horrific bloodshed she had witnessed had not been some fever-induced vision.
"Hey, Sparky! You all right?"
Rumbledown's voice shook her out of her shocked stupor, and she looked around to see the guard officer giving her a concerned look. His gladius had been sheathed, and the sensation of intangible pressure pressing down against her shoulders was beginning to abate as well.
"I... I'll be all right, Rumbledown," the purple mare answered shakily, drawing in a shuddering breath. "I just need a moment to-"
"Oi, you! And just what the hay did you think you were doing, rushing those critters by yourself like that!? You got a death wish or something!?”
The infuriated shout tore through Twilight’s ears like a thunderclap, almost sending the unicorn into a hyperventilating fit. Spinning around, the lavender librarian winced as Slipstream’s voice, irate and far too loud, lashed out again.
"Guard officers like myself are the ones charged with the defense of Equestria; you should be leaving the fighting of monsters to stallions like myself! Don't put yourself in danger and try to get yourself killed trying to do things our way!"
The officer had apparently taken it upon himself to knock some sense into Pinkie Pie’s head. Though his katana, back in its ordinary shape, was safely sheathed across his back, Slipstream still struck quite the intimidating figure. Even without his golden armor, the pegasus would have stood almost a full half foot taller than the baker, and his outstretched wings made him seem even larger. Add in the fact that he had all but pressed his face up against Pinkie’s, and it looked like Slipstream was ready to deliver a no holds barred verbal beatdown.
Of course, beatdowns typically require the victim to be incapable of fighting back.
"What did you say!?”
Pinkie somehow managed to match Slipstream’s anger in full. Raising herself up onto the tips of her hooves, the party pony glared daggers at the soldier, her normally cheery voice filled with an astonishing amount of venom.
“Are you saying that I should just stand by and watch while my friends and home get attacked and just do nothing!?"
"What in the-"
"Is that what you're implying, huh!? If you're supposed to be the ones protecting us, then where were you five minutes ago!?"
All the ruckus had started attracting the attention of nearby, early rising ponies who were just beginning to realize that the danger had passed. Slowly, a small crowd was beginning to form around the four of them, watching the altercation with growing apprehension. Repressing an agonized groan, Twilight bit her lip. Great, now there wasn't any hope of keeping this entire incident quiet.
"You'd better watch who you're talking to, missy." Slipstream's voice had lowered itself to a low, deadly growl. "I'm an officer of the royal guard, and you will address me with the respect due to that station!"
"What was that, Mr. Tough Guy? You trying to pull rank on me now!?"
An eyebrow twitched viciously on Slipstream's forehead, and the stallion bared his teeth. "Damn you-!"
Even with her thoughts thrown into disarray, Twilight still had to resist a derisive snort. Ten years later, and Slipstream still had yet to get over his temper.
“Don’t you underestimate me, little Miss Smart-Ass! I’m the sixth seated officer of the Thirteenth Division; that means that I’m constantly out there, putting my life on the line for ungrateful foals like you! Looking after bratty half-pints like you isn’t an act of charity, I do it because it’s my responsibility as a guard officer!”
“Oh yeah? And how many times have you saved Equestria from eternal night, chaos, and changeling invasions, Mr. Sixth Seat?”
If the crimson sneaking across Slipstream’s face was anything to go by, the pegasus was coming dangerously close to blowing a gasket. “Why I... You...”
With an enraged roar, the officer took a couple steps back. Twilight allowed herself a small sigh of relief; maybe the soldier would be smart enough to just walk away and-
Her heart skipped a beat as Slipstream reached back and wrapped a hoof around his blade’s scabbard. Was he actually thinking of using that on Pinkie!? In front of all these ponies, no less!?
“Slipstream!” Rumbledown had apparently deduced his comrade’s intent at the same time Twilight had. Growling, the stallion charged forward, moving to impede his friend’s attack.
“I’ve had just about enough of your-” Slipstream had already raised his sheathed sword over his head, looking ready to slam Pinkie over the head with it, but he never got the chance to. Not because of the surrounding crowd, not because of Rumbledown, but because of-
THWUMP
Well, because of that.
A sudden wave of power, massive enough to shake the earth itself, thundered across Ponyville, flipping Twilight's world upside down with its sheer might. The screams of the surrounding ponies jabbed into her ears like dozens of needles, and when her vision finally righted itself she was horrified to see the entire crowd descend into a mob, mares and stallions alike running this way and that like chickens with their heads cut off.
For a moment the scholar’s eyes widened incredulously, unable to divine exactly what had driven them to such hysteria. What had she missed? Was there something that she had failed... to...
Twilight looked up, and her mind simply ground to a halt. Her jaw fell open as she blinked several times, trying to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her. They weren’t.
There really was a huge, spiderwebbing crack in the fabric of reality itself, right above Ponyville’s town square.
The cracks glowed with a sickeningly green hue, reminiscent of the flames she had seen in Celestia’s flashback. For a moment Twilight felt a thin lance of cold fear spear itself in her gut - there was no way this could be happening; history couldn't possibly be repeating itself, not here, not now!
The titanic THWUMP repeated itself, widening the cracks and sending more otherworldly, emerald light spilling through them. Every single thought present in Twilight's head was immediately driven out, replaced by sheer fright as she gaped up at the horrifying display. The world was literally falling apart right in front of her - how was she supposed to react to that!?
There was a final, shuddering impact, and the cracks gave way. A hole, easily as wide as the town square, was torn into the sky, revealing an impenetrable, roiling maelstrom of dark energy on its far side. The sound of a hundred thousand lightning bolts filled the air, nearly deafening the unicorn and completely drowning out the panicked cries of the frightened crowd. Time seemed to creep to a halt as they stared, without blinking, into the gaping maw of oblivion.
And then something came through.
An incredible bulk, large enough to dwarf even the town hall, fell through the hole and sky and landed in the middle of the square. An unnatural, light green glow spilled through the rift it had left in the sky, illuminating its massive, blocky outline far better than the still growing dawn.
The foursome wasted no time. A brief gallop brought them all back to the town square, where ponies were beginning to gather around the impact site in awed, but frightened curiosity, wondering what exactly had tumbled down from the heavens.
They might have thought it an intriguing mystery, but Twilight knew better. As she stared up at the still, monolithic figure, her arcane senses brushed against it, and she once again encountered that strange, writhing aura that seethed with corruption, indelibly tainted right down to the deepest, darkest roots of its essence.
Whatever this thing was, Twilight realized with mounting anxiety as she slowly began to back away from it, her eyes widening with fear... it probably was not going to be friendly.
Right next to her, Pinkie simply looked up, gave it a simple, evaluating look, and grinned.
“Say, Twilight. That thing you were talking about earlier...” The magenta baker reached out to one of the many emergency sunglasses stashes she had made all over Equestria for just such an occasion, and grabbed the first pair off the top of the pile.
Against the otherworldly green glow that glared from the gap, Pinkie raised the triangular orange tinted glasses up to her eyes, and faced up against the gigantic figure before her, her grim smile never faltering. “The thing that you said that got to Fluttershy... Is this it?”
“Up there!” Pinkie cried out as she turned to face Twilight, standing on her hind legs with a forehoof pointed skyward. “That’s the Nether! The Nether’s really up there, isn’t it? This huge fella just came from the Nether, dropping in from above! Isn’t that right, Twilight!?”
Twilight could only gape back, unable to muster a comprehensible response. Pinkie had never been the most rational of ponies, but why would she react to this situation with excitement of all things?! Struggling to find the words, the unicorn prepared herself to admonish her friend, only to interrupted by a titanic roar, one on par with an Ursa Minor’s, and the massive silhouette behind Pinkie shuddered to life, bursting out of its crater with an earth-shaking tremor and rising up to its full, terrifying height.
Debris fell everywhere. Chunks of rock descended upon them like rain, ranging from tiny pebbles to boulders several times the size of a pony. Twilight found herself screaming and ducking for cover behind Rumbledown as the guard officer threw himself in front of her, shielding the purple mare from the hail of rocks.
All around the square, the shadows cast by the giant’s silhouette swept over the crowd, now outlined as some sort of giant... bull-horned... head... thing. A pair of stubby arms, one clutching an enormous, crude club, stuck out from its sides, and two equally squat legs protruded from where its neck should have been.
“M-m-monster!” Twilight recognized Daisy’s voice, tinged with terror as usual. “It’s a monster!!!”
It only takes a single spark to set off a powder keg. Ponies began scattering all throughout the square, shouting their own horrified screams as the giant’s club came crashing down to carve out another vast crater.
A second shower of debris was sent flying into the air, and a chunk of pavement the size of a forehoof clocked Rumbledown squarely across the back of his head. The officer went limp in a heartbeat, his eyes rolling backwards as his unconscious body slumped to the ground. Another projectile, this one the approximate size of a pony’s leg, slammed into Slipstream’s gut with a wicked crunch. The wind torn from his lungs, it was only a matter of seconds before the stallion collapsed, his forgotten katana clattering off to the side as he stared up at the rising monolith in gaping, slack-jawed terror.
Amazingly, throughout the entire ordeal, Pinkie never flinched once. She remained standing, her forehoof stretched towards the heavens above, her ecstatic grin never faltering, and her energized gaze studiously ignoring the deadly debris shower. She had eyes for one thing, and one thing only: the hulking figure that towered over ponies and buildings alike.
Oh, and a certain cowering pegasus.
“Hey, what’s up, Mr. Sixth Seat?” The mare bent down over the trembling guard, her forehooves on her hips and a sardonic grin plastered across her face. “Aren’t you supposed to be the one who’s protecting us right now? Why’re you cowering on the ground like that?”
Unfortunately, Slipstream barely seemed to register the question - his attention was still completely focused on the monolithic beast behind the mare. Snorting, Pinkie raised herself upright again; she didn’t have time to deal with the likes of him. “Oh well. Here, let me show you how a real mare does things!”
She raised a hind leg and stomped, slamming her hoof against the handle of Slipstream’s fallen katana. The sword was sent spinning up into the air, and whirled hypnotically about Pinkie’s neck a few times before landing neatly in her outstretched forehoof. The earth pony’s smirk seemed to grow even wider as she rested the sheathed blade over her shoulder, her blazing eyes locked on the rampaging giant before her.
“Pinkie, hurry up, we have to get out of here! This way!" Twilight desperately tried to call out to the grinning mare, frantically pointing away from the behemoth. Unfortunately, the baker seemed to be unable to hear her, and the unicorn’s eyes bugged out in panic as she realized that Pinkie was walking towards the massive monolith. “PINKIE!!!”
The party pony never stopped.
“HEY, HEY, HEY HEY HEYHEY!!!” Pinkie bellowed out in a steadily rising voice, her blood roaring hotly through her veins as she confidently strode up a nearby pile of rubble, almost as though she wasn’t facing off against a gargantuan monster that was more than a hundred times her size with nothing but the katana over her shoulder and the grin on her face. "Ya know, it’s not polite to come crashing into somepony’s home and start smashing up the place without so much as an invitation - you’ve certainly got some nerve, don’t you!?”
Behind her, Twilight was swiftly dissolving into a nervous wreck, stammering a few syllables as she stared disbelievingly at her friend's incredulous courage. “W-W-Wai-! R-r-ru-!”
“But!" Pinkie's verbal tirade continued, one of her hooves pointing squarely towards the monster's head. "You'd better know that I’m not gonna let you go around making all of my friends all frowny-wowny by breaking all their stuff!!!"
Then, the unthinkable happened.
The monster looked down at Pinkie, its beady, reptilian eyes focusing on her. Its massive jaws opened, revealing rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth, and words spilled out, accompanied by a voice as deep and distorted as the crashing ocean.
“HUH? WHO THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?”
For a moment, Twilight's fear vanished, completely overridden by astonishment. “Holy stars, it- It talks!”
Pinkie seemed less surprised by the creature's ability to speak, and more impressed by the fact that there was something for her to reply to. “Oh ho! Well, I'm going to tell you something important now, so you'd better dig the wax out of those huge ears of yours and listen!
The magenta pony’s forehoof pointed skyward, the early morning sun staining the limb with shades of pink and crimson, and her voice rang out with clarion clarity. “The reputation of Ponyville’s Team Harmony echoes far and wide! When they talk about its undying heart, the pony of indomitable spirit and laughter, a mare with a soul as strong as her back, they’re talking about me! The tenaaaacious soul of Ponyville!”
In a single, smooth motion, Pinkie drew the katana from its scabbard, tossed the sheathe backwards carelessly with a flick of the blade, and pointed its tip at an opponent that was more than a hundred times her size. “That’s me, the unbreakable Pinkie Pie!”
Silenced reigned.
Several dozen metres away, hidden in the wreckage of a house and watching the bizarre tableau, three ponies stared in disbelief.
“... Idiot.” Daisy facehooved after a second.
“What an idiot.” Lily agreed.
“Big-time idiot.” Roseluck concurred, shaking her head.
“Any troublemakers in this town,” Pinkie continued, having not heard the trio’s words, “are going to have to answer to me!!!”
The giant simply snorted, raising its enormous club over its head as it prepared to crush the tiny little filly. "HA! AND WHAT CAN A PUNY LITTLE CREATURE LIKE YOU DO TO STOP ME?"
As the behemoth readied its weapon, Twilight froze up in terror, images of Pinkie being crushed into paste flocking through her mind. Unable to move, it was all she could do to yell out a warning. “Pinkie, ru-!”
A sudden, hollow thump! sliced through the air, cutting off Twilight, and a flash of green exploded against the side of the giant’s club, sending it careening off to the side and into the ground directly to Pinkie’s right.
“Eh?” The party pony raised an eyebrow as she stared, nonplussed, at the giant’s diverted club. How the hay had that happened? Her eyes traced where the blast had come from, trying to spot its origin. “Huh?”
Thump! Thump! Thump!Thump!Thump!
More of the strange, hollow booming sounds rang out in rapid-fire succession as several more flashes of green tore through the air, and Pinkie realized that they were coming from the direction of the town hall. Her gaze immediately focused itself on the building, seeking out the source of the shots... and... didn’t quite manage to process what she was seeing.
Some weird monkey thing was swinging down from the hall’s topmost spire, holding on to a cord of some sort that extended from its wrist. The green flashes were coming from the end of its other arm, and the young mare’s eyes widened in surprise as she realized that the end of the limb ended in a barrel of some sort, like a miniature cannon.
The filly watched as the figure swung in a wide, parabolic arc that brought it in her direction. As it swung, it kept firing more of those strange, bright blasts every other moment, with each flare of acid-green sending the behemoth stumbling backwards, off-balance, as they exploded against its metallic hide.
The figure let go of the cord as it approached them, landing in front of Pinkie in a sudden dive. A flash of forest green filled her vision as she got a faceful of cloak, and it was only after batting away the obstructing fabric that she caught a glimpse of the wide, piercing grin being directed her way.
“Stand back, girlies!” A bright, chirpy voice that bubbled with enthusiasm and energy reached her ears, and she stared wide-eyed at the newcomer’s eyes, orbs of hazel that glittered with a manic intelligence. “Let the professionals show you how it’s done!”
Pinkie continued staring. "... Huh. Where do you think he came from?"
"Two arms, two legs, no tail..." Twilight murmured, her brain on rapid-fire as she stared in shocked recognition of his silhouette. "Don't tell me, he's-!"
Before the lavender unicorn could finish her sentence, a massive burst of power nearly bowled her over and sent her mane flapping wildly. Her eyes widening, the librarian gaped at the strange figure. From this close a distance, she was able to get a feel of the amount of energy he had been packing into those each of those shots... and it was enough to completely outstrip even the strongest blasts of arcane energy she could possibly conjure.
And he had just fired off more than a dozen of those blasts in less than ten seconds.
Before Twilight could grasp the implications of that simple fact, her train of thought was derailed by another series of familiar thump!s. More of the neon green blasts shot out of the stranger's arm-cannon, slamming into the giant’s gut and sending it toppling to the ground, having taken one too many blasts to maintain its balance.
As the titanic beast fell, the newcomer wrenched his arm back at the elbow in a cocking motion. There was a strange clicking noise, and Twilight saw a smoking, emerald colored something eject from the stranger’s elbow joint, which dropped to the grass and began to sizzle ominously.
Abruptly, the human took off at a dead sprint to the side, circling around the fallen giant. “All right,” he shouted, “I’ve knocked the big sucker down - gotta take him out quick, before he gets up again!”
“Yo, monkey boy!”
A bright, high-pitched voice from somewhere behind him snagged the stranger’s attention. Turning around, he blinked in surprise as he spotted Pinkie trailing behind him, her strange bounce-gallop easily keeping pace with his speed as she slung her borrowed katana casually over her shoulder. “Are you fighting that big ol’ McMeanypants up there? I’ll lend a hoof!”
A hazel eyebrow arched in response, and he stared blankly at the pink filly. “... Monkey boy?"
Not bothering to wait for the baker’s answer, the human took an enormous leap. Soaring nearly two stories high, he landed lightly atop the wreckage of a recently destroyed house, pausing for a moment to scan the struggling behemoths for any weaknesses. His investigations were interrupted, however, by a sudden light tap on his shoulder, and he turned to see Pinkie still standing next to him, balancing on the rubble just as flawlessly as he was. “Name’s Pinkie Pie! Say, did you come from that huge crack in the sky like that big guy over there did? If you did, I gotta say; you look a lot different than he does!”
A vein throbbed noticeably in the stranger’s forehead as the mare’s incessant chattering struck some nerve or another, and he directed a sharp but distracted look at the young baker, still keeping an eye on the giant before him. “Listen here, missy - didn’t I tell you to run!? You got some sorta-”
His eyes finally focused on her properly, and he suddenly stopped talking mid sentence, recognition shining in his eyes. "Hey, wait a minute... You're that broad I was supposed to-"
Before he could get any further, the sky above them abruptly darkened, and Pinkie looked up just in time to see a massive hulk of rugged steel descending towards them. The sheer bulk of the end of the giant's club was enough to blot out the sky, and the party pony only had time to let out a surprised gasp before the bludgeon came crashing down, reducing both her and the stranger to little more than a thin, somewhat pinkish paste.
Or at least, it would have, if it hadn’t been for the familiar, vermillion-hued auras that had suddenly enveloped the mare and human. With hardly an instant to spare, the two of them were suddenly pulled from reality, only to reappear in a tangle of limbs and cloak in the middle of the Ponyville Library.
Shaking her head to clear the teleportation-induced vertigo, Pinkie shot the lavender unicorn above her a grateful grin, hardly noticing the grim glare she was getting in return. "Thanks, Twilight! You really saved my flank there!"
"No time, Pinkie," Twilight responded seriously, casting a worried glance out the window as the building shuddered. "We have to figure out a way to stop that thing, and fast!"
“Jeez...”
Two sets of equine eyes immediately wheeled around to the human as he slowly clambered to his feet. “Didn’t expect Mally to call in this kind of muscle in case of his death. Damned Dreadlords, they just keep being a pain in the ass even when they’re dead...”
Rubbing the back of his neck, the human strode over to the window, bending down to peer at the chaotic scene outside. “And I had him downed and everything,” he muttered to himself. “Gonna need to figure something else out...”
“Are you-” Twilight cut herself off before she could finish, taking a second to think about what she was doing. This was one of the strange beings who’d been attacking her friends; what the hay was she doing treating him like some sort of ally!?
SHUDDER
Ah, right. Twilight thought to herself as the building shook again, a stark reminder of the giant that was currently laying waste to Ponyville outside the library. That might be one of the reasons.
Shaking her head, the young scholar quickly pulled herself together - there would be time to freak out later, but right now she had to keep herself calm and collected. The town was counting on her! Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down and turned to face the stranger. “Are you one of those humans that have been running around, hunting down and hurting my friends!?”
The unicorn almost slapped a hoof to her face the moment the words left her mouth. What? Twilight, what are you doing! Is antagonizing him really the first thing you want to do?
Twilight cringed, readying herself for any manner of reprisal... But what the stranger did was to simply ignore her, focusing his attention on the rampaging titan outside.
“Could bring it out...” He muttered to himself, tapping his chin thoughtfully with a finger. “But with the kind of collateral damage it could cause... Sounds like something Melchior or Smith would do. Maybe if I isolate it first...”
“Hey!” An irritated voice barked, and the stranger jolted, turning as though he had just realized she was there to see Twilight giving him an annoyed look. “Are you listening to me!?”
“... No?” he replied after a moment, seemingly unsure of his answer. “Er... Kind of busy trying to figure out how to take down that fat bastard. Now’s not the best time for conversation.”
“Well, too bad!” the lavender unicorn snarled, making no attempt to hide the fury in her words. Bracing herself against the floor, Twilight glared at her bizarre houseguest with all the force she could muster, her horn aglow with powerful energies. “I have had it up to here with my friends and my home being attacked by you monsters! Now, you are going to give me some answers, or else. Got it?”
The man stared at the librarian for a moment, and then responded in a cool, almost disinterested tone. “Two things you probably ought to know. One: Gaius would kinda kill me if I spoiled anything for you, so don’t expect to get shit out of me. B: If you’re going to try to force me to spill my guts, then you can just forget it. Come on, you might be strong but you have to realize just how much more power you’re going to need to-”
Something about the giant's movement outside suddenly caught his attention, and the man immediately turned his gaze to the window, staring out of it as though he had never been talking to Twilight to begin with. "Well, hello there... Didn't think I'd get a shot like this so early into the game..."
A vein twitched violently in Twilight's temple. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"
“Yeah, yeah,” her guest muttered, not bothering to glance away from the window, “you go ahead and keep doing that. Meanwhile, I’m gonna make sure that this guy doesn’t wreck up your town, village, whatever. Sound good?”
“What? No, I don-”
“Fantastic. Now be a good little girl and go sit in the corner; the grown-ups are trying to fix things, mmmkay?”
For a moment, it was all Twilight to could do to simply gape at the stranger as he turned back to the window, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. She might have expected to be threatened, or brainwashed, or outright attacked by the strange being, but being dismissed so brusquely, as though she was just some annoying filly? She certainly hadn’t seen that coming.
So, she stood there, glowering at the man she knew nothing about. Her mind was racing, struggling to find some line of questioning that wouldn’t be instantly shut down. If she could just find the right words, then maybe she could-
“Hey!”
Pinkie Pie’s voice was full of its typical sugary cheerfulness as she bounded towards the stranger, much to Twilight’s horror. “Pinkie, don’t!” she whispered worriedly, but the party pony either couldn’t hear or chose to ignore her warning.
“Mmmm,” the human grumbled in response, and though his gaze remained focused outside, he was obviously unable to ignore the pink mare’s incessant hopping. “And what do you want?”
“You’re not a bad guy, are you?”
The sheer audacity of Pinkie’s statement was enough to divert the stranger’s attention from the rampaging behemoth outside; after shooting another look out the window, he turned to glance at her out of the corner of his eye, one of his eyebrows arching upwards. “Oh? And what makes you say that?”
“Welllllllll...” the earth pony began, tapping her chin with a hoof, “let’s see here...
“You’re not trying to kill us or steal the Elements of Harmony, at least so far as I can tell, you’re trying to fight the monster who’s wrecking our home, you don’t smell evil, you saved me from the monster, itchy knee, twitchy nose, tingley back...”
The impressive list of reasons managed to elicit a bemused smirk from the stranger, as well as a disbelieving grimace from the unicorn in the corner.
The stranger’s lips twitched in the approximation of a smile, but his eyes remained focused on the rampaging giant outside. “That depends a lot on where you're standing, when looking at me. I'm no saint, but if you're asking about whether or not I want to stop big, fat, and ugly out there, I'll have to respond with a resounding yes."
From behind the man, Pinkie Pie grinned. “So... it’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one who sent me that weird emerald, right?”
The man turned to look over his shoulder at Pinkie properly, and then cracked a smile that reminded Twilight of a tiger baring its fangs.
"Now, this is getting interesting,” the human replied brightly, his eyes flashing in sudden recognition. “I was looking for you for a while, missy, right up until I got sidetracked by that big lug outside. Fat bastard can't be allowed to run around doing any more damage than he already has, no matter what I was supposed to be doing here in the first place."
The man turned to face the young pastry maker, looking her up and down as though examining her, and finally extended a hand. "Gaius would have my hide for what I'm about to pull, but I'll take all the help I can get. And from what I'm sensing, your body has already assimilated those energies from me pretty damn well, which means that you could be something other than totally useless. What do you say we work together to take this bugger down?"
The filly looked down at the hand being offered, glanced up at the grinning face in front of her, and slapped her hoof firmly into it, flashing a wide smile in answer. "You've got it, pal.”
“Awesome.” The stranger returned her smile with a grin of his own. “Name’s Adam Caspar, West Venom of the Order of Koaxia. And you and I, missy? I think we’re gonna make a great team.”
“Pinkamena Diane Pie! So...” Pinkie was smiling so hard, Twilight was surprised her face hadn’t somehow broken in two. “How’re we gonna do this?”
“I’m thinking...” Adam tapped a finger on his chin for a moment in thought. “Bolshevik Muppet.”
“Bolshevik Muppet?”
“Yup,” he replied with a maddeningly intriguing grin. “Thus kablooie, thus no more baddie.”
His expression gave absolutely no clue to his intentions, but, to Twilight’s dismay, it seemed that Pinkie somehow understood whatever it was he was talking about. “Ooooohhh... I’m liking this plan,” the magenta filly chuckled, her grin growing even wider.
“So, you in?”
“What, you kidding me? ‘Course I’m in!” Pinkie whooped out in an enthusiastic yell that would have suited Rainbow Dash far better. “Just who the hay do you think I am!?”
Twilight's stare flickered between the two, trying to follow along with the apparently invisible conversation that they were sharing. Never mind the fact that she felt like there was some hidden subtext she was missing out on, there was a far more horrifying implication hidden in the way the duo was interacting.
Dear Celestia, she thought to herself. There’s two of her now.
“Excuse me,” the lavender unicorn spluttered. “But would somepony mind telling me just what is going on here?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, silly-filly!” Pinkie simply beamed cheerfully, and gave Twilight a pat on the head. “Your auntie Pinkie Pie’s gonna fix this all up!”
The lavender unicorn could only stare at her friend in slack-jawed incredulity.
Stars and stones, what had she gotten herself into?
Either ignoring or totally oblivious to her friend’s plight, Pinkie immediately wheeled around to face their mysterious stranger, bouncing enthusiastically. “So, buddy, what’s the plan? How’re we gonna stop that big old Meany McMeanypants from smashing up the town?”
Caspar’s lips curled upwards in a predatory grin, and he crouched down on the floor next to the baker, spreading his hands outwards.
“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do...”
Pain.
Hurt.
White.
Sheet of white. Pain. No senses. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. Couldn’t breathe.
Stars above, he hurt everywhere.
A sea of agony flooded his consciousness. Floundering blindly as he struggled against the pain, he dragged himself back to the waking world inch by ragged inch. Slowly, his memory and mind struggled back to the life, and the first dregs of coherence began to draw his disjointed, barely defined thoughts together.
Shining Armor let out a startled, breathless gasp as he was abruptly yanked back into reality, and his eyes snapped open to stare at the early morning sky overhead.
The first thing that he noticed was that he lying upon a soft bed of grass. The second was the bizarre, almost unbelieveable fact that he was still alive. Third and finally, that stars above the pain was abominable.
The captain wouldn’t have been particularly surprised if his teeth decided to fuse together, given how hard he clenched down on his screams. But he’d just now managed to pull himself out of unconsciousness; there was no way he was going to lose his head so quickly.
After several agonized moments, the stallion finally managed to emerge from the white haze of searing pain that had engulfed his body, his mental discipline reducing it to a more tolerable red mist of pounding aches. Gritting his teeth even harder, Shining simply pushed past the remaining discomfort, forcing it to the edge of his awareness where his aches and pains became inconsequential.
By the time his head had cleared enough for him to take in the rest of his surroundings, his breathing had slowed down to deep, even breaths, and his eyes had narrowed into razor-sharp slits. Exhaling slowly, Shining Armor eased his eyes open, and simply lay there, revelling in the fact that he was still alive.
Then the events that had led to this sorry state came crashing back down on him.
Oh, horseapples - Lady Fluttershy!
The captain sprang to his hooves - or at least, he tried to. Pain he might have been able to shut out, but there was no way for his body to ignore the effects of sheer and utter exhaustion, and his spring became more like the hot, lazy, motionless end of summer.
The young stallion let out a groan. Bone-deep weariness weighed him down to the point that it was a monumental effort to even twitch his muscles, but he somehow managed to roll himself over, bring his legs beneath him, and attempt to get up.
He’d spent enough time wallowing on the ground - he still had a duty to fulfill.
Shining tried to push himself upwards, and only found himself flopping about uselessly for a second or two as his legs failed to respond.
"Son of a buzzard, you've got to be kidding me," he muttered, too exhausted to even feel annoyed. He tried to reach for his magic, drawing up his will to infuse himself with a temporary burst of strength, and met similarly futile results - the mere act sent his world spinning in vertigo-induced circles, and his horn only sputtered out a few pathetic sparks.
To the moon with this; not only was his body completely exhausted, his magical reserves had been utterly drained as well. For all practical purposes he was as helpless as a newborn foal right now... but Shining Armor didn’t care about that either.
It still wasn’t an excuse to ignore his charge.
The guard captain reached out with his left forehoof, planted it into the ground, and began dragging himself in the general direction of Fluttershy’s cottage.
Lift. Plant. Drag.
Lift. Plant. Drag.
As he dragged himself forward, he realized something gravely amiss - while the rest of his body still hurt horribly, the entire lower half of his right foreleg had gone completely numb. Whatever it was that Caspar had done to him, it had completely robbed his limb of any sensation. Granted, the piercing agony that had pervaded the forelimb had also receded, but that small consolation was mitigated by the fact that any time he tried to move it, it just twitched lamely in response.
As exhausted as Shining Armor was, it came as no surprise that he couldn’t muster the strength to even tilt his head in the direction he needed to look at his foreleg... then again, he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to look at it to begin with.
The memory of the flesh of his leg rippling and boiling flickered through his mind, and the guard captain shuddered, immediately forcing the thought away. He didn’t want to think about that.
Single-minded focus tunnelled his vision, and within seconds all he had eyes for was the door to Fluttershy’s cottage. Inch by painful inch, he dragged himself towards his destination, his left foreleg his only means of movement.
Lift. Plant. Drag.
After what seemed like an eternity, he finally managed to make his way up the stairs, nearly knocking over a few tables and chairs in the process. As he dragged himself into Fluttershy’s room, he noticed that the Bearer of Kindness was still lying comatose and limp in her bed, her sheets not disturbed even the slightest bit by the brief altercation that had disabled him.
If dragging his way up the stairs had been a near exercise in futility, reaching from the floor to the pegasus’ bed proved to be all but impossible. After nearly a dozen tries, not to mention quite a few painful bumps to the head, Shining Armor finally managed to use his one good leg to haul himself up onto the side of the Fluttershy’s mattress and, panting heavily, propped the upper half of his body up on the feathery surface.
He was still in the midst of getting his wind back when he saw it: A tiny, squarish piece of yellow parchment lying on the pegasus’ bedside table, one that had certainly not been there earlier this morning.
It took about a mountainload of times more effort to actually drag himself over to the parchment to read it than it took for him to decide that it was worth checking out. When he finally reached the bedside table several bruising falls later, a look at it revealed that it was a note of some kind, but he didn’t recognize the erratic, curved hoofwriting that had been penned onto the scripture.
What he did recognize, however, were the words.
Hey foo, The apparent note began.
I fixed up your body as best I could. Jenova cells are a real doozy to deal with, but I managed to isolate the infection from the rest of your body. You won’t have to worry about crossing over to the other side any time soon, but all the same, try not to use that foreleg of yours too often. You’ll go horribly insane and die one hell of a messy death if you do.
It’s still your leg though, so don’t go thinking you have to cut it off or anything. But if you experience any symptoms like new powers, unnatural strength or unexplained voices in your head, please consult your nearest doctor or psychiatrist, and for God’s sake don’t reach into the power that it provides you with. I’d hate for your friends to have to put you down like some sort of rabid dog.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have someone to find.
A. C.
Shining Armor stared at the note, unable to process just what he was seeing here.
He was tired. Just too damned tired. He couldn’t deal with any of this right now. Whatever implications that the note had, he simply filed... well, more like tossed them away for future reference somewhere inside the jumbled, cluttered pile of information that was currently his head. He’d sort it out later once he didn’t feel like he was ready to just collapse unconscious on the spot. Perhaps if he could just find a nice place to prop himself up on, he would be able to keep watch over Fluttershy without passing out from the effort...
A sudden, resounding THUMP shook him through his very bones, and Shining Armor nearly toppled to the floor again. The young captain bit back the urge to swear a vicious string of oaths, and he turned his head to the window, trying to get a look at what was going on outside...
… and stared, slack-jawed, at the behemoth that had fallen through the crack in the sky and had crashed right into the midst of Ponyville.
… Celestia, Luna, and Faust, you can not be serious about this.
There was a brief stirring next to him, and the young stallion looked over to see Fluttershy making the smallest of movements. The unconscious pegasus’ eyes were still glassy and staring, but her gaze was unmistakably directed at the rampaging behemoth outside.
Her lips made the faintest of movements, moving so faintly that Shining Armor could barely make it out. After a moment the young mare’s lips moved again, repeating the same word, and he realized that she was murmuring a name.
Fluttershy’s lips repeated it again, and Shining Armor recognized the faint sound that he heard.
Pinkie...
This time, the stallion did curse, and he desperately tried to push himself upright back onto his hooves, but his legs did little more than flop uselessly about. Shining Armor spat an frustrated oath at his uselessness that would have blistered the paint off the walls, and he hauled himself bodily onto the bed, panting heavily as he pointed his horn at the window.
He knew that as much as he wanted to protect them, there was practically nothing he could do right now to help the town that his sister and her friends were undoubtedly trapped inside right now, even if the feeling of helplessness lashed against him as painfully as a set of chains. All he could do now was maintain his watch over Fluttershy, and stars willing, nothing dangerous would come their way, and he could still see them safely through this.
The guard captain shut his eyes tightly, desperately trying to ignore the unnerving numbness in his right foreleg that he still didn’t dare to look at, and he lowered his head, doing something he had not done in years.
He prayed.
Stars above, please, let the rest of the division arrive swiftly... Snow Dancer, Rumbledown, don’t fail me now...
“So...” Twilight peered upwards critically. “This is the thing that’s gonna drive that giant out of our town?”
“Nope,” Caspar beamed with all the pride that a parent would for his beloved child. “This is the thing that’s gonna freakin’ obliterate it. He’s a little dormant now, though - I haven’t called him out in quite a while. He’ll need quite a jolt to wake him up!”
“Oooooohhhh...” Pinkie stared open-mouthed in wonder. “Sounds awesome! But... How’s it gonna obliterate it? I mean, that big meany outside is just so darned big!”
“Not to mention,” Twilight’s expression furrowed in concern. “It looks a little like that giant outside... That face...”
“That doesn’t matter, Twilight! It’s on our side, isn’t it?” Pinkie clapped her friend reassuringly on the back. “It might be smaller than the big guy outside, but it’s certainly a better solution than anything we could come up with!”
Caspar simply snorted, and flung himself upwards. “If you think that’s cool, then check this out.”
Twilight’s jaw practically hit the floor, and Pinkie’s eyes brightened. “You can ride it? That... can’t be possible!” The young scholar sputtered doubtfully. However, her pâtissière friend simply bounded up to Caspar, her expression enthusatistic as she placed her hooves down in contact with it as well.
“Ooohh, I get it!” the pink baker whooped. “Come on Twilight, think about it! With this thing, and your power - then that big thing-!”
Twilight’s expression slowly shifted from doubt to realization, and she nodded contemplatively, already considering the idea. “We could do it...”
Pinkie nodded so hard that her head nearly bounced right off her neck, and Twilight looked down again, her eyes narrowing.
“With this thing, eh...”
“Uh huh! Twilight, if we help him out with i- Huh?” Pinkie suddenly stopped mid-sentence as something thudded strangely inside of her, and she looked down to see a soft, glowing nimbus of emerald light emanating from her chest... resonating in time with the same glow that was pulsating just a few feet beneath her.
Caspar stared weirdly. “... Huh. It’s never done that before.”
Pinkie gave the pulsing light one look, and grinned. “Heh, looks like this is really gonna work!”
Despite Pinkie’s confidence however, Twilight looked far from reassured, and she continued peering doubtfully. “I don’t know, Pinkie...”
“Come on, Twilight, you gotta work with us here!” The lavender unicorn looked up to see Pinkie giving her an expectant look. “Caspar can’t beat that big guy all by himself - he knows how to beat it the best, but he can’t pull it off in one shot like he plans to if we don’t pitch our power in! He needs our help!
Some part of Twilight knew that Pinkie was right, but all the same, she still hesitated as she debated with herself the validity of the half-baked scheme they had come up with in the last few minutes. “B-But-! But we’re not even sure if this is going to work!”
The pink pâtissière rolled her eyes, and held a clenched hoof up in emphasis. “Don’t be silly, Twilight! Remember the times we beat all those long odds against Nightmare Moon, Discord and the changelings? 'Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb!' - isn’t that how Team Harmony rolls!?”
The librarian simply stared at her, trying to make sense out of what Pinkie was saying. “But...”
Abruptly, Pinkie stretched down, grabbed Twilight by the shoulders, and plopped her down next to her. “Come on, Twilight! It’ll be fine! I know you can do this with us!”
Another shudder rocked through the building as the giant outside asserted its presence once again, and a tiny, frightened whimper slipped out of Twilight as she contemplated the notion of going out to face it again. “B-b-but-!!!”
A foreleg suddenly landed across her shoulders, and she looked over to see Pinkie giving her an encouraging, enthusiastic grin.
"Listen, Twilight! Don’t believe in yourself!" The pink prankster's hoof thumped against her chest. "I believe in you! So just believe in me, who believes in you!”
Caspar gave her an odd look. "… What the hell was that supposed to mean? I mean, my mind goes on odd tangents most of the time, but even I didn’t get that."
Twilight was about to protest, but whatever arguments she might have had died in her throat when the floor beneath them shook again, and the building shuddered as the sound of a massive roar crashed into her ears.
"COME OUT AND FACE ME, KOAXIAN!" The giant outside bellowed. "I KNOW YOU'RE HERE - I CAN STILL SMELL YOUR STENCH! STOP HIDING LIKE A LITTLE COWARD... OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO TEAR THIS ENTIRE TOWN APART TO FIND YOU?"
That was all Twilight needed. The notion of Ponyville being torn apart by this thing, and while under her watch no less... She wouldn't stand for it! This was her home, darn it, and she would sooner cut her own horn off than run from something that threatened it!
The young mare's mouth settled into a grim, determined line, and she nodded next to Pinkie, steel in her eyes. “All right then - let’s give it a shot!”
"Yes!" Caspar pumped an arm. "All right then, let's get this show on the road! Sparks, get some juice flowin'; we're gonna need a lot of power for this!"
Twilight shot the man an annoyed glare, but she resisted the urge to correct him about her name anyway. The young scholar reached within herself for her magic, and found it more than ready to respond to her calls. Power surged through her body as her horn lit up, and just as it did, she saw a tiny receptacle open in front of her - a tiny hole, just small enough for a key to be placed inside.
Or perhaps... just small enough for her horn.
The young scholar's chest tightened, her breathing growing more strained. As her senses probed deeper, she could sense the overwhelming potential that thrummed beneath her: power capable of potentially creating entire planes... or destroying them. The sheer vastness of its magnitude yawned out before her, spinning, spiralling... as though the power of the very galaxy itself lay beneath her.
Twilight gulped. Whatever it was she was about to do here... There would be no turning back. The moment she channelled her power in there, everything would change, and nothing would be the same again.
But then again, that had already been the case ever since Rainbow Dash had disappeared, hadn't it?
The town needed her - what more did she have to lose?
Twilight jabbed her horn into the hole, and let loose with the torrent of power she had summoned up as the connection was made.
Click. Twist.
Nothing could have prepared her for what came next. Emerald light flashed, and a veritable tsunami of energy burst outwards, streaming out in torrents strong enough to actually lift them off the ground. Arms and legs suddenly burst out and solidified from what had previously been lumpy, formless stumps, and beefy, spiked fists large enough to envelop a pony’s entire head clenched tightly enough to elicit several menacing cracks as crimson armor gilded with gold formed along its arms and legs.
“All right, he’s awake, and we have power!” Caspar cried out, and the man slapped his hand downwards. “Hang on girls, this is gonna be one hell of a bumpy ride!!!”
Before Twilight could even prepare herself, there was a massive jolt, and she immediately began clinging on for dear life as her surroundings turned into one giant blur that melded with Pinkie's excited whoops.
The interior of the library abruptly gave way to the straw and green of Ponyville’s streets, now tinged with a disturbing amount of grey - demolished mortar and bricks, no doubt. The rampaging giant had already done a number on the homes surrounding the town square... but now, they were going to put a stop to that.
Already, she could see the behemoth’s massive girth rushing up to them... and then suddenly they had passed under it, darting in between its legs in a massive burst of speed.
“Accelerate, Pinkie!” Twilight heard Caspar’s voice yell out. “Let’s let ‘im have it!”
“You got it, Cas’!”
“Right on!!!”
Twilight wasn’t sure how many rounds they had darted around the beast, but by the time they suddenly snapped to a halt, she was dizzy and light-headed enough from all the zipping around that she barely even heard Caspar let out a triumphant cackle.
“HAHA!” The Koaxian crowed, crouched down on the shoulder of the boulder-sized entity he had called up as a part of this plan, and he looked up confidently at the giant that loomed over them, his poise unfettered and spoiling for a fight. “All right, you demon punk, I’m here, and now I’m gonna fight you to the death! Heaven itself might forgive your sins, but my Esper, Cúchulainn the Impure, will not!!!”
At the sound of the strange name again, his ‘Esper’, Twilight found herself darting another curious, suspicious look at Caspar. The fact that he referred to Cúchulainn as ‘his’ Esper implied dominion or ownership of some sort... but she had sensed the magnitude of Cúchulainn’s power, and there was no way that such an overwhelmingly powerful entity could simply be summoned at the beck and call of a mortal like herself, or Caspar.
There were only a few forms of explanation that made sense, one of them being that Caspar himself was more powerful than his Esper, and that thought alone chilled Twilight more than anything else. There was also the possibility that Caspar’s Esper was actually a part of him, and that it was what gave him his powers, but honestly, the mere thought of it was just absurd - how could two souls share one body?
A shadow suddenly loomed over her, interrupting her thoughts, and she looked up to see the giant breadth of the behemoth’s club suddenly coming down on them like a metal fist descending from heaven itself. The mare let out an uncharacteristic shriek of terror, and she reflexively cringed away from the oncoming club.
Of course, what she forgot was that the connection with Cúchulainn that provided him with extra power was still linked to her. Her impulse to retreat immediately manifested in the form of springy legs that suddenly sent them flying dozens of feet straight up into the air, dodging the giant demon's blow... And doing only that as they continued to spring out of the way again and again each time the giant swung at them, but never counterattacking.
"Twilight, what the hay are you doing!?" Pinkie yelled out. "Why are you running away!?"
"Because we're gonna die if we get hit by that thing! We have to avoid it!" Twilight screamed back, her eyes scrunched up in desperate terror.
"Don't be stupid!" Pinkie roared. "A true mare never dies, even if she's killed!"
The statement was so bizarre that Twilight got distracted for a moment just trying to figure out what the hay it was that her friend had just said - unfortunately, it was also the moment where her next springing dodge went slightly off-course, and she ended up careening into the path of the next thrust of the giant's club.
Before Twilight even knew what was happening, it crashed right into them. Slamming into the body of Caspar's esper like an oncoming freight train, the giant’s club thrust them into the wall of the nearest house, and punched them right through where it stayed stuck there.
In the sudden chaos and shock, Pinkie and Caspar found themselves tumbling down the length of the club, until they landed in a dazed heap. Blinking the stars out of her eyes, the pink filly quickly sat up, and abruptly realized something that could quite possibly have been rather detrimental to her short-term survival odds.
“We-We’re on its head!!!”
Next to her, Caspar snapped up to his feet, and they scrambled away just in time to dodge out of the way of a massive, metallic claw as the giant reached up as though it was trying to scratch off a couple of annoying fleas. "Oi, what the-!? Sparks, where are you!?"
The claw came at them again, and Caspar cursed, rearing an arm backwards. “Damnit, I hate it when shit like this happens!”
Abruptly, the Koaxian’s fist swelled to dozens of times its original size, and he swung it heavily like a hammer on a collision course with the claw headed in their direction. The ‘hammerfist’, as Pinkie immediately took to calling it in her head, collided with the giant’s hand with a massive CLANG!, and sent it careening away... but only barely. Within the next moment, it was already reaching for them again, and Caspar had barely recovered enough balance from the over weighted swing to lash out again with his left arm, sending the claw back again with his other hammerfist.
“I can’t keep this up forever,” Caspar snarled as he righted himself just in time to deflect another swipe of the giant’s claw, sweat beading on his forehead. “Damn it, Sparks! Where the hell are you!?”
The unicorn in question was still currently hanging half-conscious from Cúchulainn 'cockpit', the open seat that opened up from its sizeable cranium and upper back, and the esper was still pinned to the wall by the tip of the giant's club. Upon hearing Pinkie's cries of panic and Caspar’s enraged shouts however, Twilight abruptly snapped out of her fugue, and she shot upright, freeing Cúchulainn in a tiny shower of debris. "Pinkie!!!"
The young librarian nearly made to dart forward instantly, but the moment she saw the two of them darting about the giant's massive head like a couple of tiny ants, and the sheer size of the claw that was trying to swat them, she abruptly froze dead in her tracks from sheer fear and hesitation.
Cúchulainn, still maintaining its arcane connection with her will despite her having withdrawn her horn from the key slot, unexpectedly responded to her will. The esper suddenly froze as well, instead of rushing to the rescue of its master, and they both stood immobile and trembling, standing at the tip of the club.
Twilight just stood there, frozen, for several agonized, terrified moments. Stars above, what the hay was all of this!? This entire fiasco was making the incident with the Ursa Minor look like a cakewalk in comparison, and how was she supposed to beat something this big!?
Celestia damn it all, where was Shining Armor when you needed him!?
Twilight gulped - as far as things went, it looked like this was going to be up to her.
"K-Kick reason to the curb, and d-do the impossible!" The lavender mare repeated to herself desperately, clinging to the phrase Pinkie had uttered earlier as though it had a power all on its own. Her hooves clutched desperately onto the two handles that controlled Cúchulainn’s movements, and she dragged its feet forward inch by inch despite her mind's terrified insistence that she back the buck away. "T-That's the way... Team Harmony-!!"
The rest of her sentence trailed off as Cúchulainn inched forward another step, and then she abruptly lost her balance and rolled head over hooves in an uncontrolled tumble down the shaft of the giant’s club. But as she steadily gained speed and momentum, the high, thready terror in her voice slowly gave way, growing into a steady, determined timbre - like there was even a snowball’s chance in Tartarus she was going to let this beast hurt her friend!
Rapidly reasserting control over Cúchulainn, Twilight burst out of the tumble in a controlled roll, charged across the giant’s shoulder with a crazed cry, and she raced to her friend’s rescue, screaming her name all the way.
“AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH-PIIIINKIEEEEEE!!!!”
The claw had been mere inches away from closing in upon them, Caspar firing madly at it with his arm-cannon in an attempt to deter it, when Cúchulainn abruptly slammed into it, solidly clocking the giant hand with a body slam that had its full weight behind it and abruptly slapping it aside. The esper’s body landed heavily in front of Pinkie and Caspar, Twilight hyperventilating in a panic and wide-eyed in the ‘cockpit’s’ seat, and the duo quickly clambered aboard, Pinkie slapping Twilight encouragingly on the back. “Nice one there, Twilight! Not a bad move!”
A shadow shifted over them, and Caspar looked up to see the giant’s club already rearing upwards for another blow. An idea occurred to him, and immediately, he slapped a hand down on Twilight’s shoulder, shaking her and urging her to action. “All right, come on, make another one of those jumps, Sparks! Come on, let’s go!”
Twilight barely responded. The librarian had completely frozen, clutching onto the handles like they were lifelines, and her eyes were tightly shut, her forelegs trembling madly. Up above them, the giant’s club raised itself even higher, and Caspar’s eyes widened as he shook Twilight even harder. “Oi, Sparks, what the hell are you doing!? Get your ass in gear, move it!!!”
The fear and pressure were too much; the lavender mare suddenly snapped, letting out a scream, and Cúchulainn’s cockpit abruptly sealed itself, cranium-colored seals wrapping themselves around the trio and squeezing them into the tiny confines that had been meant to contain only one individual at a time. The giant’s club descended... and slammed ineffectually against the deceptively fragile surface.
Nothing more than a giant CLONG! reverberated off from the reinforced cockpit - Cúchulainn was sent tumbling and spinning off into the air as it slipped out from underneath the club, and the rest of the blow’s considerable weight slammed right onto the crown of the giant’s head.
The results were as one would have expected from anypony who knocked themselves over the head with a baseball bat. The giant’s eyes rolled back into its head, and it wobbled unsteadily for a few seconds before tilting over to the side and toppling into the wall of a nearby, thankfully unoccupied house. The impact reduced the entire building to rubble, and the rest of its body crashed into the ground with a titanic impact, sending a shower of debris everywhere that bounced ineffectually off of Cúchulainn’s sealed cockpit.
Inside the tiny space, two mares and one man sat squeezed together, bodies contorted into nearly impossible positions just to fit inside. Twilight still sat completely frozen, her eyes wide as dinner plates as she clutched at the handles, and to her right, Pinkie’s face was jammed up right next to hers with her leg across Twilight’s shoulders, giving her a surprised grin as she let out a discomforted groan. “N-Nice shutters, Twilight.”
“Yeah, just a little... cramped, though...” Caspar muttered to her left.
Cúchulainn stepped up to the fallen giant's body at Caspar's direction as he took over the controls from Twilight, and gave one of its sizable fangs a few experimental taps. When there was no response, the Koaxian grinned. “Looks like we did it!”
“He took quite a blow to the head..." Twilight nodded in agreement as they turned Cúchulainn away. "Looks like he won’t be getting up anytime soon.”
They had taken only a few steps away from the giant's body when there was a sudden scream, and Twilight looked up to see horrified Roseluck staring from amongst a spectating crowd that was cowering from behind what was left of the buildings around them. The crimson-maned mare was staring wide-eyed, and her hoof was pointed at something behind... them...
That cannot possibly be good. Twilight had just enough time to think to herself, right before a shadow rose up behind them. Before any of them could react, steel jaws tipped with teeth several times as long as Cúchulainn was tall closed in upon them, and an overwhelming pressure began to crush them inwards. Outside, they could already hear the giant's crashing, distorted laughter as it crunched its teeth upon Cúchulainn’s body, attempting to crush the trio inside.
“I. GOT. YOU. NOW!!!!”
Twilight struggled against the pressure, trying to break free, but it was too much - it was like trying to squeeze free of a steadily shrinking tube, and she let out a strangled whimper. “Unh, it’s useless! It’s too tight!”
Next to her, one of Caspar's eyebrows twitched, and he shot her an annoyed look. “Damnit Sparks, quit makin' those weird little sounds in here!!! Come on, just gimme a few seconds to think of something...”
Below them, Pinkie's face was jammed right next to the panel where Twilight had connected her power with Cúchulainn’s, and her hoof was stuck mere inches away from the power receptacle. The pressure continued to press in on them, and Pinkie knew that she had to be the one to break them free. Twilight had been twisted away from the panel by the impact of the giant's jaws, and she was the only one who could reach it now.
All she had to do was reach her hoof over to the glowing slot just mere inches away from her... and she could barely even move her own body thanks to the cramped confines of the cockpit. “Damnit! More power! We need more power!”
With all her strength, the pink filly strained against the pressure closing in on her, going forward to reach the pulsing light, desperately reaching for salvation. Just an inch further... Half an inch... There!!!
She felt her hoof make contact with the warm, pulsing light, and she immediately pressed down upon it, willing forward everything that she had in her desire to break free.
Green light exploded outward. The panel lit up in an expanding spiral pattern as a high-pitched whine steadily built up around them, and something suddenly burst out in front of them, digging into the giant's teeth. Within moments, they had suddenly broken free in a shower of metal fragments, and finally got a clear look at what had just saved their collective skins.
“Eh? What’s a drill doing there?” Caspar raised a surprised eyebrow at the spinning metallic bit that had suddenly protruded from the crest of Cúchulainn’s forehead.
Pinkie simply gave him a nonplussed shrug. “I don’t know, it just came out when I channelled my power through!”
“Nice weapon - I think it suits you!” The gleaming tip of the spanking new drill glinted dangerously in the light of the portal that loomed in the sky over them, and Cúchulainn landed solidly on its feet, its new drill-horn pointed squarely at the giant.
“Cas’, looks like we can really get it with this!” Pinkie prodded the Koaxian with her elbow, and Caspar nodded in agreement.
“All right! Let’s send that thing packing back to where it came from - with the power of your Team Harmony’s drill!”
The pink baker nodded her affirmation with a sound of assent. Her grip upon the handles replaced Twilight’s, grabbing on to them and letting her will suffuse itself into Cúchulainn. The spiral panel before her began to glow with emerald light as she clutched onto the handles tighter, and the esper threw its chest out with a mighty bellow. In a burst of power, drills similar to the one adorning Cúchulainn’s forehead burst out of its forearms, and the same emerald light exploded outwards from its entire body in a blazing corona in time with its battle cry.
“Now, Pinkie! With your drill, pierce through to heaven!”
Twilight could only watch in wonder as Pinkie matched Caspar’s shout with her own, and then proceeded to surpass it as power unlike anything she had sensed before surge out of her friend. Before she could even brace herself, Cúchulainn blasted forward in a storm of spinning power that completely shredded the steel body of the titanic club that the giant thrust at them in an attempt to meet their charge.
And as though that hadn’t been enough, the Esper’s comparatively tiny body continued drilling upwards, shredding the rest of the club’s shaft, and then continued on to consume the rest of the giant’s arm after that. Its path didn’t end there - Cúchulainn slammed into the hollow of the giant’s shoulder with such an impact that it was actually carried airborne, and it drove the invading titan all the way back to the crack in the sky from where it had come.
At first it seemed as though the giant’s sheer mass would stop them cold right there, but Twilight was swiftly proven wrong. As though meeting the obstacle had galvanised them even more, Caspar and Pinkie’s shouts grew in volume, and the power that poured out of them and into Cúchulainn intensified even further.
A tornado exploded to life beneath them. In an explosive burst of raging energy, the emerald comet of power they had become blazed with meteoric fury, and pushed. There was the sound of glass first cracking, then shattering as something behind the giant gave way, and abruptly they were through, leaving behind a trail of swirling smoke in their wake.
Far below them, Slipstream stared at the skyborne fissure where the giant had disappeared into, staring in awe. His forgotten katana suddenly clattered to the ground in front of him, fallen from the sky, but he paid it barely any mind.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to be forgetting this sight any time soon.
Above the cacophonous sounds of the drill’s unrelenting advance, Twilight could barely even hear the giant’s screams of shock and pain. Sparks flew from where the drill’s tip dug into the demon’s metallic hide, a blinding display of light that interplayed with the emerald-green glow that suffused the entirety of Cúchulainn’s cockpit. The din was so deafening that she barely even heard the words that Caspar shouted next.
“Adios, you demon punk! I’m gonna send you packing back to the Nether where you came from - the Nether that you bastards brought me to when I was a kid!!!”
Pinkie neither heard nor would have paid heed to any of his words. Caught up in the rush of power that had suddenly poured out from her innermost being, she fed that energy into Cúchulainn without a shred of hesitation, and watched in delighted satisfaction as the torrent of power utterly obliterated the giant’s arm and proceeded to boot it straight out of Ponyville. With so much strength rushing through her veins, the high that coursed through her was five times just as intense as any sugar rush she had ever experienced.
Behind her, she could feel Twilight’s presence steadily thrumming with life and energy, and that energy in turn fed Pinkie with invigoration unlike anything she had felt before. Her body creaked and groaned from the strain of the power, but right at that very moment, she couldn’t have cared any less.
With this kind of strength, with Twilight at her back and the power of her friends backing her up... she could do anything.
The triumphant grin on her face turned itself upwards even more, and the Element of Laughter opened her mouth and screamed her joy to the world around her, power pouring forth from the very depths of her soul and propelling her onwards to the depths beyond.
The demon’s hide simply gave way under the trio’s furious onslaught. Fissure by fissure, the remnants of the giant’s shoulder splintered and cracked. Metal was rent and shredded, the entire frame coming apart beneath the ferocity of Cúchulainn’s unrelenting assault. The dying roars of the behemoth drowned out even Pinkie and Caspar in volume, before finally ending as it was blown into oblivion. It’s body was utterly disintegrated, and the thousands upon thousands of fragments left behind were whipped away on an ethereal wind, leaving no trace of what had occurred, save for a ruined Ponyville that was now nothing more than a tiny speck through the ethereal crack below them.
As quickly as it had come, Pinkie’s rush died away, but her hooves stayed firmly on the handles. Twilight had managed to calm herself down enough to take even breaths. Caspar, on the other hand, had a grin plastered on his face that stretched from ear to ear.
“Ha! See, girls? That wasn’t too hard, was it?” But both Pinkie and Twilight were too lost in the sight before them to heed Caspar’s comment. As Cúchulainn continued to revolve, it was made apparent that a sand-swept, rocky desert stretched for miles in all directions, no doubt reaching even beyond the horizon. Above it, a single, orange star bathed one half in golden light, the other basked in a navy blue darkness, lit only by a silvery moon.
“Stars... so this is inside of the Nether?” Twilight’s voice was little more than a whisper.
“It’s... beautiful!” Pinkie leaned over the edge of the cockpit-like cavity, marvelling at the view.
“So...” Caspar clapped his hands together, and the two mares turned to see the Koaxian giving them an expectant look, his fingers steepled as he gazed at them thoughtfully. “Now that we’ve got that guy out of the way... there’s something I need to settle up with you, Pinkie.”
A finger beckoned, and he leaned forward.
“Let’s talk.”
A minute went by. It wasn’t one devoid of any explanation, but given the participants, it shouldn’t have been any surprise at all to Twilight that she didn’t understand any of it.
“So... that’s pretty much the story, huh?” Pinkie appeared unusually relaxed, her cheery demeanour seemingly having deserted her. Nor was there anger. Just cool, if perhaps slightly melancholy, calmness.
“Yeah. I haven’t got a lot of time left.” Caspar admitted, grasping the tiny drill in his palm he had removed from his trouser pocket during his explanation. A rather spartan one in decoration: it was little more than a tiny bronze head the size of a pebble with a stone grip, and a thin chain dangling from the hilt. “None of us do.”
Twilight simply looked between the two, and stared in bewilderment. Over the past minute, the two of them had exchanged nothing more than vague sentences with wild gesticulations to punctuate and emphasise them, yet somehow they had managed to understand each other perfectly, despite Twilight’s best efforts to try and decipher just what they had been trying to get at.
And as Caspar’s explanation via Charades had gone on, Pinkie’s expression had slowly gone from cheery and optimistic, to sombre and pensive. Her mane had deflated visibly, and while it was hardly as flat as it had been during the disastrous ‘Pinkamena Incident’ on one of Pinkie’s birthday, Twilight could tell that there was obviously something bothering the pink filly.
“Darn...” Pinkie’s face was a now a mask, devoid of emotion. Twilight didn’t know what it was that her friend had understood from what Caspar had told her, but whatever it was, it had obviously affected her deeply. “It’s a shame, really: we might have even become friends if the circumstances had been different,”
Caspar let out a weary sigh, “Maybe... Don’t mean I can’t leave something good behind, though.” Pinkie gave him a curious look.
“Hmm? What are you talking about?” she inquired.
“You’re certainly something else, girl.” He chuckled. “Not too many people can even keep up with my kind of crazy, but you just went right ahead and skyrocketed right past it. You’re definitely it, girl... Definitely it.”
The man simply gave her a level glance, and smiled enigmatically. “You’re the one meant to carry on, Pinkie - for both of us. And my time is almost up. It’s up to you and your friends now.” his eyes were focused on something distant. Pinkie turned to see what he was staring at, but only the vast expanse of desert and sky greeted her.
“Hang on - wait, what are you talking about?” Twilight, having recovered from her shock, finally spoke up. She had had just about enough of all the vagueness from the mysterious human, and it was just about time that she finally started getting some answers! She wasn’t going to let an opportunity like pass her by!
Unfortunately for her, Caspar simply laughed, and said nothing more. “Don’t sweat the details - you’ll get what I mean once the memories start coming in,” he switched his pensive gaze to Twilight, “It’ll be your turn soon. Make sure you’re ready,”
Pinkie did a double take, “Wait, I don’t underst-”
Without warning, Caspar gripped the miniature drill and rammed it up to the hilt in Pinkie’s chest. She gasped, tears forming at the corners of her eyes, partly because of the pain, but partly from disbelief. After all that, after all they’d gone through, Caspar just wanted to kill her? She looked down at where the Koaxian’s hand was still clasped around the totem. There was no blood. There was no sign of an injury. Only pain, and the sound of her own, shallow breaths.
“... Why?” she asked, looking up. She saw only regret reflected in his eyes.
“Sorry about this, kid... Believe me, I wish I could stick around to show you how to deal with what’s to come. We all do.”
With a final, somber glance, Caspar twisted the drill.
The entire world went green, and everything around her disappeared.
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Four down, two left. I wonder what's going to happen first, Twilight inheriting her power or her mind completely breaking?
I know, I know.
We're all thinking the same thing.
UPDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next up is Rarity vs. unstable Rainbow Dash, am I right?
Everyone start placing your bets here!
I........ Gurren Lagann? Really? I actually lost count of how many references there were.
So pinkie gets to WEAPONIZE her abilities? Anything in a 6000 mile radius, RUN!
+20 upvotes, and only one downvote... I like where this is going.
THE BURNING FIRES OF YOUTH AND MANLINESS FLOW THROUGH MY VEINS!! LET THE DEMONS COME- FOR TONIGHT, THEY DINE IN HELL!! ERRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
THIS HAND OF MINE GLOWS WITH AN AWESOME POWER! IT'S BURNING GRIP TELLS ME TO DEFEAT YOU! TAKE THIS! MY LOVE, MY ANGER, AND ALL MY SORROW!!! SHINING FINGER SWORD! GO! GO! GO!
Pretty much my reaction to this.
Gurren Lagan, huh? Pinkie isn't quite as cool as Kamina I'm afraid, but I hope she won't die as suddenly as he did. Anyway, cool enough chapter I guess, but personally I'm looking forward more to Rarity and Rainbow Dash's upcoming confrontation.
2405642
Imma go with mind breaking. She's already acting fearful, FAR more than would be in character for her. She'll lose it soon I feel like
2408260 I just got a question: why opposed to just Bleach, as opposed to all the other sources I've been including in here?
2407704 Damn, and here I was hoping this chapter would be enough to blow you guys away
Sigh. Oh well. I'm just going to have to up the ante in the next chapter then!!! 
2409086
You seem to have scale mistaken for epicness. Truly awesome scenes doesn't necessarily mean massive robots and over the top levels of power, in fact if handled wrong those things can make it less epic and more bland. You see, epic comes from a variety of factors, and the most important one of those factors is a sense of wonder and awe, which is what you took advantage of really well in Rainbow Dash's first encounter. See, the problem is now the reader knows how powerful the Order is and has adjusted their expectations to that level. Unless you can find a way to make things new and novel again, you need to shift your approach to 'awesome'.
At this point in the story the way you make things awesome and intense is by putting characters the reader likes in a situation that they might not be able to handle. Maybe it's just because Pinkie was never my personal favourite character, but I found this fight decidedly unintense. I was more or less measured that the good guys were going to win, and that by the end of it Pinkie was gonna earn her Kroaxian poison powers. Repetition is starting to settle in here, and it's hurting your story.
That's why I think Rarity and Rainbow's confrontation will be so cool, because it's something we haven't seen before. Rainbow can't control her powers, and Rarity's unwilling to hurt her friend, so what's going to happen? Some serious heavy stuff could actually happen there, and hopefully that'll reintroduce some intensity to these fights.
I'm hoping you'll find a way to make AJ's asscension/level-up cool and intense the same way Rainbow and Rarity's were. To me, Fluttershy and Pinkie just felt like you were going though the motions and getting it out of the way more than you were telling an engaging story.
2409237
Hmm...
Say, I got an offer for you, given how comprehensive your reviews are. How would you like to be a pre-reader and part of the writing team, so that we can polish up on what I've got planned for future chapters so we can make this story a whole lot better?
2409299
On the one hand I really do like this story and would love to see it improve, on the other I'm already a pre-reader for OrphiusOlyandra, RaginCaucasian, PiquoPie, and TheyCallMeJub, so I'm sorta booked out at the moment. And that's on top of my own writing that I want to keep up with.
Hmm...
Alright, I'll give it a shot I guess. but if things get too crazy on my end I might have to pull out. PM me with the details of how you want to handle the pre-reading. I usually prefer to work with g-docs, but I'm open to other methods.
2409333
It'll be good to have you on board!
2409598
Thanks, but like I said, I might not be able to stick with it.
oh gawd, the all dumb - structuring cliffhanger...my arch nemesis in the fan fic world, we meet again. And just when shit was getting good too
I wholeheartedly approve of this hotblooded chapter.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to watch Gurren Lagann again.
Finally got to this on my "read later list" a few days ago, and gave myself time to try to clear my thoughts on this.
I got to say that as Y1fellas says, repetition is a problem here. If I was able to retroactively suggest anything I would say that naming the chapters were the mane 6 gained their powers after the members of the Order is a bit of a dead give away of how it is going to end, and that you should not have always put the majority of the interaction between the transferrer and transferee of powers into one chapter each. These two things would have allowed you to for example, split up the East Abyss chapter into two so it wasn't your longest chapter by 11 thousand words. Also not every confrontation with the Order of Koaxia I feel really needed a fight with the member of the mane 6 involved.
Some criticizism:
Rarity's fight confused me. I was glad when it didn't start as a fight, and when it transformed into a maze where Rarity had to use her zen-like ability to get through, even if it involved facing a few minor enemies along the way I was still happy for the change in pace and for how fitting it was. However the ice golem fight, at the end, was confusing for me. To explain: This seemed this whole test is to solve a puzzle under pressure, such as Rarity transversing the maze while being attacked.
This is furthered by the quote
Yet at the end, she fails to do the perceived purpose of this test, as she doesn't recognize the trap forming around her. She was caught up in the battle (or into her zen-like state) to the point where she didn't notice the trap forming, which most if not all of the readers saw coming without Applejack having to say anything. She didn't solve her last puzzle in time, and yet Lucius is impressed at the end. I don't see keeping cool as only in the fighting without panicking or screaming, but also by analysing your opponent and what is going on around you. What I see as failure in the middle of the most important stage, is somehow acceptable in Lucius' view, hence my confusion. I doubt that it was out of Lucius' ability to hit Rarity with the power transferring shot without trapping her first, so I felt that there was no narrative point to Rarity actually falling to the trap, and in fact hurt the narrative by doing so.
Fluttershy's confrontation with Rene I was excited by how it started and by how it ended, but I can't help but feel that the battle of Fluttershy and the evil shadow being was both unneeded and retroactively undermining the power of the it when compared to Rene's memories. To explain: The shadow of Rene's past had completely and utterly decimated a master of darkness. It was violent, messy, out of control and had overwhelming force. Overwhelming force wasn't what I got from the battle with Fluttershy though, the memories of her friends held it off for long, Twilight in particular, and came close to defeating him, with him admitting it would have finished him if he only existed in that world. As Twilight is a powerful being in Equestria, this almost makes sense, until the following chapters (hence my use of "retroactively"). Twilight only managed to kill one fallen imp (albiet with strong magic) before being winded, she probably wouldn't have been able to battle the rest either even if she didn't use such a draining attack. The fallen imps were also said to be weak:
This leads to a problem. The memory of Twilight was able to nearly defeat a being that killed a master in its own art, several demons and civilians with ease, but the real Twilight has trouble with one of the weakest types of demons when alone? Those ideas clash and contradict each other for me.
This is compounded with the fact that I felt the fight was superfluous. The memory that Rene had and the spirit's comments on it along with fluttershy's response was all that was needed. From there it could then in a single move destroy the "memory" of her friends protecting her and Rene could interfere before it kills her, making it keep its formability while cutting down the word count of your longest chapter. I felt that what was need in this chapter was Fluttershy and Rene's first conversation, the memory of Rene fighting his master, the dark side of Rene destroying Fluttershy's friends, and the conversation after Rene stopped his super powered evil side. Trying to make the part where the spirit destroyed her friends be drawn out, and feel like a fight instead of a slaughter just undermined the shadow's power.
That said, when I overlook the fight, everything else in that chapter makes it my favourite part of the fanfic by quite a bit. I loved the conversations that went on.
Something is not automatically better for a long or detailed fight scene, and if there is no purpose to it being long and detailed, it can actually hurt the work.
Pinkie Pies fight, by the time Pinkie spewed that "believe" Gurren Lagann quote, and entered the Esper, how things would end became clear to me and I haven't even watched a single episode of Gurren Lagann, I really only know the quote and one scene, and it was enough to predict the ending. It is okay to have references but your reference in this instance trampled over any power the scene would have for me, and my favourite pony is Pinkie. I don't get why the chapter ended when it did either. If Pinkie was the first pony who a member of the Order of Koaxia transferred energy to was Pinkie it would make sense. Now however we the reader know perfectly well what is going on, and it is not a cliff hangar for us, nor a dramatic moment. If anything it is a dramatic cliff hangar for Twilight. Furthermore it is not like she can try to stop him at this point either since he already made his move, and is dead after it anyway. This takes away more from the suspense from the scene since we know it is not a bad thing going on and Twilight can't stop it. This just doesn't feel like a dramatic point to end for me when I know that it is trying to be.
Now to the good:
I genuinely enjoyed the Rainbow Dash fight, fitting for Rainbow's personality and for the place it has in the story.
I really enjoyed both fight scenes with Shinning Armour and actually had to stop mid chapter when I found out he had Jenova cells because my brain broke for a bit, which in this case wasn't a bad thing
The kingdom hearts stained glass scene was awesome, and makes me wonder if any of the characters will get the weapons they are mentioned wielding in that.
I like the Bleach correlation with the royal Guard, very interesting and wonder if Shinning is like Kenpachi in that he has ungodly power but doesn't know the name of his sword. If I ever write fanfiction (I already have 5 possible story lines taking place in a singular narrative universe) I have plans to introduce that as an ability given to a particular pony, at about a minimum of three stories in the world XD, so I understand the desire for introducing Shunpo to mlp to say the least
.
The backstory given is solid, and I really enjoy your world building. You have managed to make OC's that I am highly interested in as well, so points for well crafted original characters.
I find that you do make many interesting combat scenes.
I am really interested how the meeting with Rarity and Rainbow Dash will go.
The recent introduction of the enemies coming in force has suitably upped the anti, and gives a sense of urgency to the characters gaining and mastering their powers.
Character interactions (besides Pinkie, because Pinkie is decidedly less hot blooded in the show
) are well done and I feel in they are in character, which is important for any dark adventure.
Keep on writing and I look forward to the next chapter
I've enjoyed this romp, such as it is--it feels like you took the same concept as my favorite story on the site, marinated it in a few dozen anime references, and served it to us on a big shiny platter of interdimensional risk.
Yum!
That said, however, I did find a few problems--chief of which is that some of your background-music links are missing songs or lead to broken or expired pages. Secondly, I get the whole Pinkie-Pie-channels-Kamina thing, but did you really need to put Twilight, of all ponies, into Simon's role as a consequence?! She's no pushover... as I think you even mentioned once or twice. Why have her fill the scaredy-pony role when it comes to operating the mecha's head?
Last of all, as of tomorrow it will have been exactly three months since you updated this last. What happened? Real-life concerns get in the way? Please don't quit this story until you finish telling the tale. 
2846989
Well... Chief reason being that I've moved on to a separate project that's going to be taking up a hell of a lot more time and will need a LOT more consideration and effort to be put into the writing process. And when it gets posted up here, its eventual epicness is going to make Koaxia look puny by comparison.
That, and I was starting to also lose the steam that drove me to write this in the first place. I can pretty much assure you that the further we go down this story, the more references and blatant ripoffs you will find, and that fact was starting to rankle at me. So, I decided to take on a different approach in another story, to make something a little more original.
So I decided to attempt at writing a good HiE that takes itself seriously.
More of a self-imposed challenge than anything else, really, but I'm really hoping this will really head somewhere - the way I see it, if I continue writing Koaxia as though it's my pride and joy, it's only going to head into a downward spiral. Koaxia has pretty much been relegated to backseat status as of now.
2853280 No problem! HiE's--particularly well-written, clean ones--are one of my other favorite genres on this site! Shall I follow you, to see when you put it up? Hmmm...
2854004 You're more welcome to do so, heh! The first three chapters are already ready, and the fourth is nearly complete. Once the first six are ready, it'll probably be ready to be posted up - look out for the title 'Equestrian Joe'!
You're killing me, Hell! I don't even have the material to work with!
On any note, how's the new chapter going?
2942658 Hang on, are we referring to Koaxia or the new HiE I'm working on?
2944907 Koaxia.
3034691 Not coming along at all - I've moved on to focusing my efforts on other projects, in case you haven't followed my blog posts, lol
Hmmm. Excellent work here. Great use of the characters. Very much like the approach used to blend the ridiculous amount source material. Shame it's on hiatus but them's the breaks.
This was a lot of fun to read. Whenever you get back to this, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.
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will this ever update?