Contest of Champions

by thatguyvex

Chapter 19: Rengoku (Part 2)

Chapter 19: Rengoku (Part 2)

Trixie had not been entirely sure what to expect upon entering the depths of the ages old, flying fortress of death and conquest. Perhaps walls covered in carved skulls? Blazing torches of malevolent crimson fire? Ominous background music, heavy on the strings? Whatever ideas she had, they didn’t quite match the plain reality of the vaulted, tall and seemingly expansive hallway that stretched before her and her companions. The floor and walls were made of the same dark, grayish metal the entire fortress of Rengoku seemed forged from, yet the walls were largely smooth and unadorned. Only small, pipe-like protrusions broke up the mundanity of it, like channels through which Trixie sensed the trickles of magic that permeated the whole floating edifice.

Light was provided only by the magic the companions themselves could provide, Trixie and Lyra with beams of it from their horns and Carrot Top with a clear jar filled with a green glowing alchemic mixture. Dao Ming lit up her own twin horns with gold luminescence, bearing her borrowed cervid-made broadsword with a small hint of unfamiliarity that did nothing to take away from her alertness.

“Charming place,” Cheerilee said as the group advanced down the hallway. Behind them the sounds of the battle upon the fortress ramparts could still be heard, like the echoes of an ancient tale of war. It was a keen reminder that they were on borrowed time, bought by the sweat and blood of fellow champions.

“Come on, we need to pick up the pace,” Trixie said, breaking into a canter, “All we have to do is get to the top of this gaudy hunk of metal and tear that Tomoko off the controls.”

“A task I am as eager as any to be about, but we’ll avail ourselves or our brave comrades little if we allow ourselves to be tripped up by ambush or traps on our way to the fortress’ apex,” Dao Ming said, matching Trixie’s increased speed with ease, “So while we make haste, let us not be careless.”

“I agree with the sentiments, my ladies, but do either of you know how to actually get to the top of the fortress?” asked Frederick. The elk bore his makeshift cudgel of broken wood with deft skill, able to hobble along briskly despite using one leg to keep a hold of the weapon. Long legs led to a long stride, and he made a point of staying close to Carrot Top’s side.

Trixie and Dao Ming exchanged looks, Trixie giving the kirin a brief shrug, mid-stride, “Supposedly we have a guide.”

“The spirit of the Warlord herself still dwells here,” Dao Ming told Frederick, “Caught in the fortress’ unnatural grip. Yet some free will remains to her, and a small measure of control of Rengoku’s functions. She opened the door for us, and claimed she could lead us to a place that will take us up.”

The Prince of Elkheim took this news with his customary aplomb, mouth opening agape for a half instant before he closed it and took an extra second to consider his words. “I think the less I ask about what you mares have been up to the past few days while the rest of us have been having a Contest of Champions, the saner I’ll feel at the end of the day.”

Carrot Top smiled at him and gave him a playful swat, “Don’t date a mare from Ponyville unless you’re ready to deal with the strange and unusual.”

“I live in a giant tree,” Frederick pointed out.

“So does our librarian,” Trixie commented, to which Frederick had no answer.

“Anypony else wondering why we haven’t run into any more of those flying murder machines?” asked Raindrops, her eyes never ceasing to scan around them for potential danger. Thus far their rapid tread down the sizable corridor had yielded no resistance. Admittedly even Trixie had expected to run into a contingent of golems by now, or some other kind of internal defense system. Even a simple pit trap, perhaps? It would actually be a little disappointing and insulting if Tomoko wasn’t trying to stop them any longer.

“Most likely my sister is either too distracted by the external battle to have realized we’re here yet, or the Warlord is interfering, perhaps masking our presence,” suggested Dao Ming.

“Or she has prepared greater defenses ahead,” Tendaji pointed out.

“Dig the optimism there,” Lyra said, “Really gives me that ‘we can do this’ vibe.”

“I merely tell things as I see them,” the zebra replied curtly, “It is unlikely we will reach the peak of this place without facing opposition. Even if we have the errant spirit of the fortress’ former ruler granting us what aid she can, my wife’s father will have sensed the approaching aura of myself and Raindrops.”

“Auras, huh? That weird zebra stuff you were showing Raindrops a few days back?” Lyra’s eyes looked up as if she were reviewing things in her head, “Your wife did help us out in the same way, so can’t say you don’t have a point. Is your father-in-law so good that he could really feel us coming all the way down here?”

Instead of Tendaji it was Dao Ming who answered, “I would not doubt it. You all saw Nuru’s duel with Kenkuro. Of all the champions here, they possess the most ability on an individual scale. If he stands in our way-”

“Leave him to myself and Raindrops,” Tendaji said, his eyes briefly cutting towards the pegasus, “Together, we can at least hold him off.”

“You think they’ll all be waiting for us?” Ditzy Doo asked, flying alongside Gwendolyn just above the party. Beside her the griffiness let out a deep, throaty huff.

“Oh they will be, if Grim’s got anything to say about it. He wouldn’t miss a chance at a ‘party’ like this. And if I haven’t missed his intent, he’ll be aiming his blades right at you, Dame Doo.”

“I know,” Ditzy replied, voice so steady it surprised even her, “I guess this is what counts as his idea of friendship?”

“I’ve known him for many years, and only now am I coming to understand I never knew him at all,” Gwendolyn admitted, beak set in a grave frown.

“Well whoever shows up to stand in our way, we blitz our way through them,” Trixie said with her canter gaining speed into a determined gallop, “Every second counts now! No matter what we find trying to stop us, break through and keep going.”

“A fine sentiment, but in practical terms some of us might need to fight a rear guard action,” Dao Ming said, “We may not all make it to the top.”

Trixie groused, “Elements of Harmony. We work best as a team.”

“Ideally, but as you said, time is a resource we have precious little of. If the group must split to give some a chance to carry on, then there can be no room for hesitation.”

“Fine, but not until we’ve got no choice,” Trixie shot back, and Dao Ming gave a quick nod of agreement.

Onward they moved, galloping or flying as their limbs allowed. The vaulted passage rapidly split into a trident of pathways, but as they approached the location Trixie saw a ghostly glow emanate from the metal piping along the ceiling of the right branch. Without deciding to question it, she turned and galloped down that way, and the others followed her readily. She could only guess that the glow was the Warlord’s spirit, showing them the path they needed to take. If not, well, right was as good a direction as any.

This passage soon curved left like the edge of a circle, and to the group’s right Trixie saw cylindrical protrusions rising up and down the wall, with circular hatchways built into them. Each had a small port built into the hatch, through which Trixie could catch glimpses of tightly bound wires and pipes, all pulsating with streams of magic energy, filling the cylinders with purple light that soaked into the very metal walls around it. Batteries, perhaps? Trixie couldn’t begin to fathom just what strange arcane techniques had gone into Rengoku’s construction, and given its spirit devouring nature, she was just as glad not to ponder it too much.

More such cylinders, pipes, and other oddly shaped apparatuses awaited them as the passage bent harder to the left, then led to another set of split hallways. This time the guiding, faint blue glow carried them down the middle passage. In following that path, they soon found themselves running up a short flight of steps, only about a dozen of them, that opened into a circular chamber about forty paces wide. However this chamber’s far wall was open to a vast interior shaft, with a platform on one end that was slightly raised from the floor, in the center of which Trixie saw a metal podium with a disc-shaped control device. Or at least what she assumed was a control device. The buttons on it were arranged oddly, like somepony’s hyperactive foal slapped together building blocks with only a vague notion of what shape they wanted to make.

The device was glowing blue, which was indication enough to Trixie that the Warlord’s spirit was guiding them here.

“I don’t like this,” Raindrops said as they group marched across the chamber towards the platform, “That shaft is way too open. It’d be a good spot for an ambush.”

“Agreed, but are you seeing a wealth of other options?” Cheerilee pointed out, “We could spend hours trying to find our way through this place on our own. At this point following the ghostly glow of a long dead kirin is about the only choice we have.”

“I do not think the Warlord will lead us astray,” said Dao Ming, “As strange as that may sound, I do believe her spirit is honest in her intent to guide us true.”

“Which doesn’t mean an ambush still isn’t waiting for us,” Gwendolyn said, her talon keeping her sword at the ready, “So everycreature keep their eyes and ears keen. I sincerely doubt we’re getting to the top of this place without facing opposition.”

“What, did the army of vicious golems that tried to kill us outside not count as ‘opposition’?” said Frederick, and Carrot Top smiled coyly at him and flicked her tail at his snout.

“If this is anything like me and my friend’s previous outings, that was the warm up round, Frederick.”

“Ah, now I’m starting to see why Wodan, Sigurd, and Andrea were all so adamant about keeping me out of trouble. Things do seem to have a habit of escalating. So then, just how do we work this... um... whatever this is?” the elk prince said as the group gathered around the disc-shaped device.

On close inspection the randomly placed blocks did seem to have some semblance of a pattern to them, although Trixie couldn’t quite decipher the logic behind it. Then again, this whole place being built by the saurian race, she could surmise that logic as ponykind understood it probably didn’t wholly factor in. As it happened, there was no need to work out the controls, for once all of the party was standing on the center of the platform a clunk of rattling metal could be heard, along with the hum of awakening machinery. Trixie braced herself as the platform began to move, rising up and at a circling angle to rise along the inner wall of the shaft. She could barely make out small rails of piping that the platform moved along, and looking up and down, she could see the shaft rose a good distance, and fell down almost an equal amount. At a guess, she estimated the shaft covered the lower half of the fortress, but didn’t quite go all the way to the top. If they reached the top of the shaft, they’d end up in the upper third of the fortress’ central tower.

Close to their destination, but yet still so far. Just how long did they have to stop Tomoko? How long could the other champions hold the line outside? And what of Celestia and Luna? From the occasional shudder that ran through the fortress, Trixie knew the powerful alicorns still battled Rengoku itself as the fortress made its slow way out to sea.

The clock was ticking, and Trixie stared upward intently, willing this elevator platform to move faster.

She didn’t know if her internal fuming actually helped, but it almost did feel as if the platform picked up speed, and in short order the ceiling was fast approaching. This in turn caused a few of her friends to exchange nervous looks.

“Umm, so, is there supposed to be a door or something?” asked Lyra, “Because I’m not seeing a door opening up, and we’re coming at that ceiling really fast now!”

Raindrops shifted closer to Trixie, one wing moving protectively towards the unicorn, “Trixie, maybe we should get off the platform, just in case...”

“Wait,” Dao Ming said, pointing with a hoof, “Look.”

A line of blue light split the ceiling in four directions, and like a set of flower petals, the sections opened upward and spread across the floor on either side of the newly opened hole, just seconds before the platform rose up. The platform came to a jarring halt, leaving the group at the bottom of a huge room shaped like an inverted pyramid, with a circular bottom where the platform had ended. On all four sizes of the upward curving room, row after row of what appeared to be metal benches were bolted to the floor. The area could probably seat thousands of occupants, and all the seating was arranged to look upon a single suspended stage from which a long staircase descended from the ceiling. Other stairs led up the walls, going to large doors at intervals along the seating rows.

“Looks like some kind of audience chamber,” said Trixie, gesturing at the suspended stage, “That’d be a lovely spot to give a rousing evil speech to one’s minions, I suspect.”

“And look at this...” Ditzy Doo said, voice slick with a disturbed note as she flew over to one of the benches and picked up something metallic that rattled. Chains. “A captive audience. This whole place feels so wrong.”

Suddenly a voice rang out clear from the stage above. The center of it could not have been seen from the angle granted by the lowest level of the chamber, but now machinery within the stage whirled to life and it lowered and pulled back enough to show Trixie and her companions that the stage was far from empty.

“Yes, the Warlord apparently liked the idea of giving grand speeches to captured troops, before either demanding their loyalty or feeding them to the fortress’ hungry energy crystals! I know she’s had a good twelve hundred years to reflect on her regrets, but that’s still a nasty piece of work you have guiding you to our dear leader.”

Frederick sucked in a breath, shouting out, “Andrea! Stop this mummery! What do you think you’re doing!?”

Andrea, the one who had spoken, stood proudly at the center of her own group. To the fiery red elk’s left lounged Grimwald in a lazy pose. His left talon was casually spinning the pale green, curved dagger he’d used in the Grand Melee, the dark colored Fey blade still sheathed somewhere hidden on his person. He gave a friendly wave to Ditzy Doo and Gwendolyn, utterly ignoring Frederick.

“Hey, Gwen! Knew you’d be one of the folk to come charging in here. And Bright Eyes, I’m happy to see you managed to wake up from the nap I put you in. No hard feelings, right?”

Gwendolyn’s beak twisted in a snarl, her wings spreading wide as she rose a few meters, sweeping her sword out to point at him, “Grimwald! I know you like to play your damned games, but this time you’ve gone too far, do you hear me!?”

He picked at an ear with his other talon, “Yeah, I hear you like a screech from my wife. If you want to lecture, skip it. You know I’ve got no patience for boring things. You’ve got a sword, use that to show me how pissed off you are. But only if Bright Eyes joins the fun...” the last was said with a licking of his beak and an expert twirl of his dagger that pointed it right at Ditzy Doo, “It just won’t be a party without her.”

To Andrea’s other side, Nuru sighed deeply and shook his head at the bloodthirsty griffin, and instead the old zebra shuffled forward and looked down at Tendaji. The younger zebra stared back, eyes like flint.

“Stepfather Nuru, you have chosen a strange Path.”

Nuru gave a humorless smile in return, “You know better than that, my boy. We do not choose our Path, merely how we walk it.”

“Then I do not understand why you walk it in this manner,” Tendaji said, eyes not dropping from his stepfather’s gaze, but lowering a shade just the same, “Your daughter bid me return you, and to make her displeasure known. But first I would know why you have done this.”

“Look, do we have time for twenty questions here?” asked Raindrops, “I know we’ve all got... entangled relationships here, but every second we waste means more trouble for our friends outside.”

“Hah! The honorable Dame Raindrops speaks truly!” Andrea said, rearing up and in a flourish pulling out her fiddle, only now the instrument looked... different. Now attached to its bottom side, and jutting outward, was a pair of outward sweeping blades, like shark fins. A spiked point now also stood out from the fiddle’s other end, essentially turning the instrument into a makeshift weapon. Andrea set bow to string and gestured dramatically down at Frederick and the rest of the group.

“Yet the back and forth between hero and villain is a staple of any saga worthy of song! Without the reasons creatures of passion do battle there is no heart to the conflict! An empty tale, devoid of meaning, if all is cast in stark black and white! Which of us are heroes true and which will history cast as vile blackguards? Victors often write the history, but it is the people who remember and retell the story. We who seek to remove a blighted fortress, a risk to all realms, or you, who would stop us for fear of repercussions? Either way, may this battle spark a flame to stoke the fires of a new dawn of epics!”

Frederick shook his head in baffled wonderment, “By the roots of Yggdrasil, Andrea, is that all this is to you? You joined this mad conspiracy just to... start an epic?”

“My Prince, what else does a storyteller live for?” Andrea replied, her eyes growing cold and bitter, “All I’ve ever done is sing the ballads of others, in a history slowly growing stale with peace. What heroes can rise to carve stories worthy of song if there are no more conflicts to be had? Aye, I joined Lady Serene’s quest because I felt in my skald’s heart that this would be a tale remembered for ages to come, and spark more tales in the making! Whether we win or lose, these moments will go down in song. I would think you’d understand better than most, Prince Frederick, as have you not too yearned for a saga of your own, no longer coddled and protected by the likes of overzealous Wodan or fearful Sigurd?”

Frederick sucked in a deep breath, and next to him Carrot Top placed a hoof on his back, to which he looked at her understanding eyes and felt himself calm down as he leaned into her. Carrot Top then glared up at Andrea, “Frederick doesn’t need to do stupid things like what you’re doing to feel like his life is exciting! He’s noble, responsible, and didn’t come here to be part of some dumb ‘saga’, but to do his duty as Prince of Elkheim and protect his people. I’m proud to stand next to him as a friend and...” she paused, gulping, then added, “And more besides.”

Before Andrea could respond, the sound of a lyre filled the air with a strong wave of soothing chords. Lyra held her instrument with her magic, matching Andrea’s dramatic pose with one of her own, hoof pointing up at the red deer, “I appreciate a good story, like any bard should, but you don’t seem to understand that you can’t make the world to bend to your tune! This world isn’t a plaything, and its people are not bit actors for your staged theater! You find adventure, Andrea, you don’t force it.”

“Heheh,” Grimwald chuckled, “Sounds like you’ve got some spirited playmates, Andrea. I’m almost jealous, but I’ve got myself booked for today. Still, we’ve got lots of folk here, how are we splitting our dance cards?”

Nuru gave his two companions little heed as he strode to the edge of the stage and with relaxed grace leaped off of it. Everypony tensed as he landed neatly in front of the group, but rather than launch an attack or even strike a fighting pose, Nuru simply looked Tendaji in the eye, then turned and began to stride towards one of the sets of stairs leading up the left side of the chamber.

“Follow me, Tendaji. If you would know the answer to your questions I would rather show you than use words.”

For his part, Tendaji paused only briefly before sharing a look with Raindrops, “Only if you consent to Raindrops accompanying me.”

Nuru didn’t even break stride, “Your Paths merge with my own, so she is allowed. Andrea, Grimwald, do as you will, but do not consider interfering with the business between myself, my son and law, and the Equestrian.”

“Perish the thought, Nuru,” Andrea said, smiling brightly, “I only regret that I won't get to witness the clash of master and student! What a sight it will be, but alas, I have my own challengers.”

“Ditto,” Grimwald said, stretching his wings and back like an awakening feline, “Knock yourself out, old zebra. We’ve all got our individual dates set up.”

Trixie let out a snort, “You do realize you’re all outnumbered here, right? We don’t have to care about your personal matchups!”

“Leave it, Trixie,” Raindrops said, giving a calming gesture with her hooves at the unicorn’s intense look, “Hey, it works out to our advantage to split these guys up anyway, rather than let them fight as a team. Me and Tendaji will deal with Nuru.”

“Are you sure about that?” asked Trixie, not entirely able to keep the note of uneasy stress from her voice, which rose from a spot in her gut that she told herself was just simple concern for a friend and nothing more, “I mean, you remember that zebra’s match with Kenkuro, right? He’s... not exactly a normal opponent.”

Raindrops took a deep breath, her own eyes meeting Trixie’s with a warm and calming stare, “It’ll be okay. You just focus on you, go kick some butt here, and I’ll come flying to catch up with you gals once me and Tendaji are done.”

Trixie knew Raindrops was affecting that confidence in part just to set her own mind at ease, but Trixie knew better than to try and pop the bubble of one psyching themselves up for the show, so she just gave Raindrops an affirming nod and shoved down her own fear for the other mare’s safety, “Go knock ‘em dead then, Raindrops.”

As the pegasus flew to join Tendaji in following Nuru away, the stage lowered, allowing Andrea to hop off, while Grimwald took to the air in a few lazy flaps of his wings. The griffin adjusted his dagger grip to an inverted one as he looked at all present, although his eyes still listed towards Ditzy and Gwyendolyn, “So how are we doing this, folks? I prefer to go at it with my selected targets, but if we want to do this as a free for all melee, I’m not gonna say no to that bit of chaos.”

“Suggestion?” Cheerilee said, raising a hoof, and all eyes turned to her, “There’s enough of us here that I can confidently say I think we’ve got you two sorted out, Grimwald, Andrea. We don’t need all of us here, and quite frankly, no time to waste. Trixie, Dao Ming, I suggest once the fighting starts, you two make a break for it.”

“Why would we do that when all of us together could defeat these two faster?” asked Dao Ming, and Cheerilee gestured upward.

“Because every moment counts, and I’d rather the two of you who can see and be guided by the Warlord get to Tomoko as fast as possible to put an end to this. The rest of us can deal with these two jokers.”

Trixie couldn’t deny Cheerilee’s suggestion made sense, and she shot a questioning look at Grimwald and Andrea, who were the ones who could still seek to bar their path... but Andrea let out a musical laugh and Grimwald just grinned wider.

“A most agreeable suggestion, Dame Cheerilee,” Andrea said, “I think our kirin heiress and fretful unicorn magician will find our Lady Tomoko to not be such an easy mark for the two of them alone, but if you have such confidence in your allies I can only respect that. Besides, it will allow me to focus my own attention on my wayward fool of Prince, his lovely if overconfident paramour, and my noble rival in the bardic arts!”

“Same sentiments, different tune,” Grimwald said, nodding to Cheerilee and making a ‘get over there’ gesture towards Ditzy and Gwendolyn, “I’ll take you with them. I might be after Gwen and Bright Eyes, but I don’t mind making it a four way. You’ve got a good enough look about you that I doubt you’ll bore me.”

“Gee, I’m honored, “ Cheerilee drawled, moving to line up next to Ditzy and Gwendolyn.

“Well then,” Andrea said, the bow of her fiddle set upon the strings and a heated light entering her eyes, “Are we ready to begin?”

“Just say ‘go’,” Lyra said, tensing her legs, her tail flicking in readiness as her magic held her lyre close.

As it happened there was no ‘go’ to be said, only Andrea sporting an ecstatic smile as her hooves blurred upon her fiddle, striking the first notes of a battle dirge that signaled all that the fight was on.

Cervid runes flared to forest green life upon the sides of her fiddle, and with each stroke of the fiddle’s bow a lashing whip of force appeared from the very soundwaves of her instrument and cracked towards Lyra. The experienced Equestrian bard responded instinctively with musical magic of her own, the soft notes of her lyre creating a protective melody that formed a bubble of sound around her that absorbed Andrea’s lashing blows.

Carrot Top, followed by Frederick, rushed towards Andrea, with the elk prince brandishing his club while Carrot Top pulled forth a ceramic jar filled with pepper juice and other intense irritants. Andrea swiftly switched targets, dancing back with smooth, swan-like steps as her fiddle played up a storm, the lashes of sound emerging from her tune now slicing towards her attackers. This forced Frederick and Carrot Top to split up to dodge the lashes of sound, the prince trying to circle for an opening while Carrot Top lobbed her jar. The jar, unfortunately, was slapped out of the air by a sound lash, but Carrot Top didn’t stop moving, using some nearby benches for cover as she fished out another jar.

Meanwhile Grimwald had shot right towards his own opponents, a dark brown and black streak of speed that came with a green glinting curve of light as his dagger struck. Gwendolyn was his first target, marked as the strongest of his opposition, what with her having won the Contest of Strength. As wild and half-crazed as Grimwald was, he knew he was outnumbered and that taking Gwendolyn out first and fast was his best move.

She was ready for him. Having known him for as long as she had, Gwendolyn predicted that Grimwald would come for her right off the bat and had taken a defensive stance. Even so, the ferocious speed with which he struck was difficult even for her to parry, even with the extra afforded reach of her sword over his dagger. The first and second thrusts of Grimwald’s dagger met Gwendolyn’s steel in nearly simultaneous clamors of metal on metal, but then Grimwald slithered through the air like a winged snake, using Gwendolyn’s parries to help shift his momentum towards a different target; Ditzy Doo.

Grimwald had drawn his darker Fey blade in his other talon and came at Ditzy in a twisting spin, jamming the dagger at her flank with an inverted grip. Ditzy may have been caught off guard by the attack, but she’d grown accustomed to Grimwald’s motions, and let the instinctual sense of the air currents around him clue her in to where his attack was going to land. While dodging alone would have been extremely difficult and risky, she had the advantage of the shield Sigurd had forged for her and was able to shift it into a blocking position even as she threw herself backwards. She felt Grimwald’s dagger scrap along the shield as the blow drove her back, but failed to reach her flesh.

Not inclined to sit idle and more than ready herself for the griffin’s violent assault, Cheerilee had carefully waited for Grimwald’s attention to be focused on the others before moving in. Grimwald was still flying low enough for the earth pony to be able to reach him with only a minor leap, and she tried to bring a hammer blow of a right hoof down on him from behind. Yet even with his eyes still on Ditzy, Grimwald proved to be as slippery as an oiled up bar of soap and slid right out of the way of Cheerilee’s hoof.

And he still wasn’t looking at her when he switched his grip on the green dagger and sliced it at Cheerilee’s face while still spinning towards Ditzy, like some manner of crazed, knife-wielding top. Cheerilee ducked, feeling some of her mane get sliced off from the narrow miss. Then Gwendolyn flew over her and stabbed out with a swift series of thrusts, trying to pin Grimwald down as he pursued Ditzy, leading all four combatants to gradually move up one of the sets of stairs.

“It’s now or never, Dame Lulamoon,” Dao Ming said, noting that the various battles had moved away from the stage and that she and Trixie had a clear line to it. Trixie looked reluctant to go, her eyes worriedly shifting towards her friends one at a time. Raindrops had followed Tendaji and Nuru to a door at the highest tier of the chamber and the pegasus only gave a final glance back, nodding to Trixie encouragingly before stepping out of view with the two zebras.

Lyra and Carrot Top were both fully wrapped up in trying to penetrate Andrea’s storm of sonic lashes, Frederick circling around to look for an opening, and Trixie caught Carrot Top just giving her a quick ‘Go!’ wave with a hoof before lobbing another jar of alchemic substances at the cervid skald.

Ditzy, Cheerilee, and Gwendolyn were all surrounding Grimwald, but the griffin was a tempest of dagger strikes that was making it look more like the three were being dragged along in the wind of a storm rather than outnumbering their opponent, but for the moment things at least looked even.

Trixie sucked in a deep breath, whispering to herself, “They’ll be okay.” She then looked to Dao Ming and nodded firmly, “I’m ready. Let’s go finish this.”

Together the pair both broke into swift gallops towards the lowered platform that their foes had just recently occupied. As if expecting them, the platform lowered even further, allowing for Trixie and Dao Ming to readily leap upon it. Trixie almost immediately felt the platform start to rise again the moment her hooves touched it, and she imagined it must have been the Warlord’s spirit controlling the machinery to help them out once more.

She did her best not to look back even as the sounds of combat from her friends echoed loudly in the chamber behind her. The platform rose to rest evenly with the walkway and stairs that led further up into the tower, and steeling her heart, Trixie joined Dao Ming in rushing along that path that would take them ever upward... and to what she fervently hoped would be the final confrontation.

----------

The air never ceased to be filled with a scintillating tempest of magical lances and blossoming arcane detonations around the darting forms of the two alicorn sisters. The meteoric flame that was Corona ejected sunbeams of metal melting flame from dozens of summoned eldritch circles that cut into Rengoku, yet the fortress’ very nature was a bane to alicorn magic and absorbed the brunt of such directed attacks, even as the beams melted through some of the fortress’ weapon emplacements. Scores of the horrid golem constructs that continued to emerge from Rengoku’s depths tried to swarm both Corona and Luna, but often found dazzling bursts of magic scattering them from the sky. The few that did manage to get close were smashed by dexterous hooves striking with unimaginable speed and force, or cut to pieces by summoned blades of raw magic, made of searing yellow flames from Corona or brilliant silver streaked moonlight from Luna.

Yet for all the alicorns’ power Rengoku was still stubbornly flying higher into the sky and out to sea, and Luna, slightly less absorbed in rage like her elder sister was, saw what needed to be done. After all, she and Celestia had been here once before, twelve hundred years ago, when they had joined together with mortal champions to stop the Warlord’s rampage with this very fortress.

A cantrip cast so swiftly it was hardly a thought, Luna communicated mentally with her sister; We cannot continue to waste time trying to overwhelm Rengoku conventionally. We must do as we did long ago, and join our magic to chain it in place.

Celestia’s heated return thoughts scorched at Luna’s brain, her sister’s voice a roaring solar flame, Curse the saurians and their entire ill-begotten race! This vile and unnatural construct should be reduced to melting glass! I should bring forth the full might of the Sun down upon-

Celestia! Luna used her sister’s name, spoken sharply yet with an earnesty fueled by desperation to reach through Celestia’s madness, Your full power, our full power, would trigger the very detonation we seek to avoid! You’d doom the world in your blind devotion to save it? You’d condemn the noble champions who even now battle upon and within Rengoku?

She could feel her sister’s mind briefly cool, if only to the simmer of a vocation still awaiting its inevitable eruption, I detest that you are correct, but correct you remain nonetheless. Very well, join your power to mine, and be wise Luna and allow me to lead the casting.

There was a brief hesitancy from Luna, but she swiftly banished it. Mad as her sister was she couldn’t truly bring herself to believe that Celestia would willingly take advantage of the situation to try and eliminate Trixie and her friends by trying to destroy Rengoku while they were still inside it. Even Celestia couldn’t be that far gone. Luna chose to believe this, as she rose high into the air on the opposite side fo the fortress to her sister, a streak of blazing moonlight in counterpoint to the pulsating sphere of flame that was Celestia.

Rengoku fired consuming beams of destructive light from the towering crystals on it’s outer circle, stabbing into the air after the two alicorns, but to no avail for the pair weaved and dodge like living shooting stars around the beams’ course. Then at a point directly above Rengoku and several hundred feet higher still, Luna and Celestia met and sent twin courses of their magic pouring from their horns to meet at an arc above them. Golden radiance as hot as the sun met with a river of incandescent moonlight, merging together in a prismatic pulsation of raw arcane power fueled by two of the oldest beings of magic in the world.

For a moment, sadness gripped Luna’s heart. She wondered if this might be the last time she and her sister would ever work together towards a common goal, a common good. The next time their magic met, would it be in the clash of life and death battle against one another? The Princess of the Night hardened herself against that doubt and pain, and focused upon allowing the steady stream of her magic to fuel the spell that her sister took the lead on, weaving the complexity of the arcane forces together. A magical circle formed, then another and another, all layered together as each circle grew in size over the last. Then, upon a blinding flash of light, chains of solid magic as thick as large trees and colored in alternating onyx black and marble white descended from the arcane circles.

These chains, in their hundreds of multitudes, spread out like the tendrils of a vast undersea leviathan, and then slammed into Rengoku all across it's length and held fast like tethers, ones that injected a focused form of telekinesis into the very stones of the fortress itself. For all of it's built in resistance to alicorn magic, even Rengoku could not fully negate a spell of this magnitude, with the combined might of two alicorns putting their all into it. The chains would remain unbreakable and embedded into the fortress for as long as the magic of the casters held out. Furthermore, Celestia and Luna formed twin, layered barriers around themselves, for Rengoku was not going to take this arresting of it's progress without contest.

Rengoku ground to a halt in the air, the battle of the golems against the champions upon the ramparts continuing, but the fortress itself no longer moving. Beams, bolts, and blasts of magic rose from the fortress’ countless weapons to try and hammer through the barriers that protected the alicorn sisters, bathing them in pure waves of destruction that howled loudly enough to be heard across miles of ocean. Fortunately the barriers held, and the fortress remained halted... for the time being.

----------

Ditzy had no time at all to see how her friends were doing. Every inch of her attention and gut instinct had to be focused on Grimwald. If anything the unpredictable griffin was moving even faster than he had when she’d fought him in the Contest of Strength. Ditzy’s main saving grace at the moment was the fact that Gwendolyn and Cheerilee were both pressing Grimwald just as hard as he was pressing them, diverting just enough of his savage strikes that Ditzy had small windows of breathing room.

Thus far Ditzy had to battle defensively, and Sigurd’s sturdy shield was proving a lifesaver. She didn’t really see Grimwald’s attacks coming so much as she let herself move as the subtle shifts in the air’s currents told her to. The flickering cuts of Grimwald’s daggers came quicker than the beats of a hummingbird’s wings, and it was all Ditzy could do to keep her shield between her and their deadly edges.

Gwendolyn’s sword carved sparking gouges in the ground and benches of the seating areas they flew around, Grimwald twisting in snaking motions to avoid the potent magical blade. One upward swing from Gwendolyn nearly sheared through a portion of an upper tier’s edging and caused a chunk of stone to slide off and crash down the stairs in a clamorous tumble, to which Grimwald cackled, “Just like old times, eh Gwen? Never caught me back then, either.”

“That’s because you never stopped running away, you twitchy bastard,” Gwendolyn hissed past a clenched beak, driving her sword in a swift trio of thrusts. Grimwald deflected one thrust with his dark steel dagger, whilst twisting away from the other two, all the while lashing out with his curved green dagger to force Cheerilee to back up, as the mare had been sneaking around into his blind spot.

“Ah ah, I ain’t about to let you get in any sneaky strikes, sweetness,” Grimwald taunted, to which Cheerilee simply flashed a cutting smile and shifted on her hooves. Her form darted in, left then right, feigning a snapping punch with her right hoof before instead planting it on one of the stone benches to use as leverage to throw herself into a side kick with her hind hoof instead.

Grimwald flipped over the blow, his back talons raking Cheerilee’s leg, to which she clenched her jaws in a hiss but pressed the attack alongside Gwendolyn, ignoring the blood trickling from the slash on her leg as she timed a punch alongside Gwen’s blade, forcing Grimwald to flutter back like a leaf against a wind. He remained frustratingly untouched by their attacks.

“Keep it up, girls. We’re here to have fun, after all.”

“This isn’t really fun for everycreature, you know!” Ditzy stated whilst trying to find an opening to maybe knock one of Grimwald’s wings off balance, but the moment she tried to shift her shield to go on the attack she found her mind screaming danger at her and she had to veer suddenly rather hard to the left and dart into one of the exit corridors to avoid a swipe from Grimwald’s darker colored dagger that would have taken her own wing off.

He pursued her into the corridor, alternating his dagger strikes in a windmill of slashes. Gwendolyn and Cheerilee followed behind, aiming a slash at his back. Ditzy curled herself tightly behind her shield while flying backwards as fast as she could, feeling the impacts of the daggers on the shield, straining her arms.

Cheerilee used the wall of the corridor to spring into an elbow drop, clipping Grimwald’s wing as he rolled aside. He lost his flight for a second and landed on his talons a shade off balance. Gwendolyn took advantage and moved in with a burst of speed, sword slashing in a wide arc. Grimwalld then dived down beneath Gwendolyn’s slash, and literally sunk into the floor. Ditzy paused, hovering in the middle of the corridor they now found themselves in. Gwendolyn grimaced at the sight of Grimwald vanishing and spat out, “Oh for bloody feather’s sake, that Fey dagger is a giant pain in the bu-”

“Behind you!” Ditzty warned as she saw a shadow exploded upwards behind Gwendolyn.

Gwendolyn didn’t question the pegasus. She simply acted, throwing herself forward and to the side. She still let out a grunt of pain as a bleeding wound was opened up on her side. Grimwald landed on the ground in a pouncing crouch, holding up the blood covered edge of his dark dagger and made a ‘tut tut’ sound at Gwendolyn.

“Getting careless there, Gwen.”

He punctuated that by taking wing again and this time flying into the wall on his right, vanishing into it. Gwendolyn, Cheerilee, and Ditzy watched in growing anxiety as they heard Grimwald’s echoing laugh, as if it was stemming from all of the walls at once, and saw him dart in and out of the walls like a fish jumping through the water.

“Thinking we shouldn’t just sit here,” Cheerilee said as the three of them put their backs to one another.

“Agreed, we’re easy prey in tight quarters like this,” Gwendolyn said, and Ditzy grabbed the griffin’s shoulder, nodding down the corridor behind them.

“This way!”

“What? Why? We’d be better off in the main chamber,” Gwendolyn said, but Ditzy shook her head. She couldn’t fully explain it but she felt a sensation of cooler, stirring air behind them and had a hunch that this hallway led back outside.

“Just trust me,” she said, to which neither Cheerilee or Gwendolyn questioned her further, both nodding for the pegasus to lead the way.

Grimwald didn’t just let them go as they pleased. As the trio rushed down the hall he began zipping in and out of the walls or ceiling, his daggers cutting lethal arcs at them with each leap. Gwendolyn and Ditzy flew nearly back to back, watching each other’s blind spots the whole way. However Cheerilee, forced to gallop, and with a wounded leg, started to lag behind. This forced Gwendolyn and Ditzy to slow down themselves to cover her. Between Ditzy’s shield and Gwendolyn’s sword, they were able to protect Cheerilee as Grimwald started to dart in and out of the corridor’s walls, his daggers ever relentless cutting. The corridor ahead of them started to brighten with the unmistakable shine of daylight.

Before Ditzy knew it she was feeling fresh wind on her wings as she, Cheerilee, and Gwendolyn burst out onto what looked like a long, curving rampart wall. It was smaller in width than the one they’d crashed on before entering the fortress, encircling one of the thinner tiers of the fortress’ central tower. Ditzy couldn’t even see where the lower tier they’d entered from was. However what she could see was that Rengoku had flown out over the open ocean, with the Isle of the Fallen now residing just a short distance somewhere to Ditzy’s right. The fortress had ceased moving, however, and the reason for this was obvious enough by the sight of hundreds of night black and sun white chains, each as thick as tree trunks, anchoring the fortress in place. While Ditzy couldn’t see them, she did get the impression Corona and Luna had to be somewhere high above, for the fortress’ numerous magical weapons were firing steadily upward into the sky, at a spot above the central tower that Ditzy wasn’t able to get a clear view of, but from which the multitude of magical chains originated.

“Looks like your alicorns have opted not to murder each other today and play nice instead. Kinda dull, honestly,” said Grimwald as he joined the three of them out on the rampart wall, spinning his daggers in each hand, “Was kind of hoping we’d get to see them duke it out sometime during this whole grand show. That’d be a fun sight to see.”

“No,” Ditzy said, shuddering slightly, “It really wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, if you think watching Luna and Corona get into a slugfest would be fun, you must like the idea of living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, because pretty sure that’s how that would end up,” said Cheerilee, shaking her head. To this, Grimwald just grinned, eyes shining.

“Hey, I say bring on the apocalypse. Doubt there’d be a dull moment.”

Turning to face him, shield up, Ditzy met Grimwald’s eyes and steadied her breathing. A part of her knew, deep down, that he really wasn’t going to stop this fight willingly, but at the same time she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was somehow Grimwald’s... truly unfathomably backwards way of expressing friendship. It was a crazy thought, she knew that, but having spent enough time around him, having fought him once before already, the notion just rang with an off kilter note of truth to it.

“Is this really just fun for you?” she asked, to which Grimwald responded with a jovial chuckle that was at utter odds with the predatory aggression in his whipcord frame as he stalked closer towards her.

“Don’t think I’ve ever been unclear on that point, Bright Eyes. Everything I do is for the fun of it. Gwen here will tell you, right Gwen? When has old Grimwald ever not looked for a good time?”

“You’re wasting your time,” Gwendolyn told Ditzy, shifting her stance so that she was standing on her hind legs, sword held in both talons now at an upward angle, wings spread to either side of her, “I’ve always known Grimwald was kind of off in the head, but never knew just how far he’d go to get his kicks. It’s my responsibility to end this, having let him get this far without doing anything about it.”

“Wait,” Ditzy said, moving forward a step, not quite blocking Gwendolyn or Cheerilee, but definitely putting herself in front with her shield. Gwendolyn didn’t drop her stance, nor take her eyes’ sharp focus on Grimwald, but she did go still, giving Ditzy an open space to keep talking. Cheerilee, similarly, didn’t relax her guard for a second, but had a knowing look in her eyes as she watched Ditzy and Grimwald both, simply trusting her friend do her thing. Ditzy gulped and looked at Grimwald, expression neither hard nor soft, like a mother considering how to best discipline a child.

“I don’t claim to understand what’s going on in your head, Grimwald. I just know that I can’t muster up any anger or fear with you anymore. You made me really nervous at first. I was even scared of you. You seemed like somecreature who was so different from me, but in a way I still wanted to try and be your friend. You... felt the same way, didn’t you? You just really can’t show it any other way than this.”

“Who knows?” Grimwald hooted, his muscles and wings tensing as his eyes burned brightly with something akin to both hunger and admiration, “I just see something in your eyes, Ditzy Doo. A spark of killer instinct? All I know is that it's so damned bright that I wanted to see what it was made of. I run into so many dull, lifeless eyes in my line of work, I just can’t help myself when I see something that really shines. If that’s friendship... well, guess we’re friends, even if I end up killing you here and now.”

Ditzy Doo took in and let out a calming breath, feeling her heart beating in a swift flutter beneath her chest, yet somehow she felt smoothly still within, like a placid pool of undisturbed water. She almost thought she could feel Grimwald’s bloodlust, excitement, and even his own beaming contentment like a breeze on her feathers. He really was the sort to wear his heart on his sleeve, and Ditzy Doo was no different. They were both open, passionate individuals who enjoyed a good time, and had an oddly keen sense of their surroundings and other people.

If he just wasn’t so gosh dang crazy, they really would have made good friends.

All she could do was offer him one of her bright, usual smiles and nodded to him, “Then I guess I just have to not die for us to be friends, right? I hope you’re ready to lose this time, Grimwald.”

For once, she made the first move, which seemed to take everycreature present except Cheerilee by surprise. She moved in a gray flash of motion at him, feigning a strike with her shield at his jaw, which he pulled back from instinctively. Ditzy then turned her body like a swallow in flight, shifting on the wind to invert herself and cut low with the edge of her shield, completely reversing the direction of her feint.

The steel edge of the metal band surrounding the wood shield impacted with Grimwald’s right wrist with only a little force, as Ditzy wasn’t a very physically strong mare, but it didn’t need to be a strong blow to loosen Grimwald’s grip on his dark steel dagger of Fey origin, causing it to clatter to the ground.

“Urk! Hah! Cheeky move!” Grimwald shouted, diving for her and his dagger, but Ditzy swept the weapon away with her tail while interposing her shield to take his body tackle. She was still knocked back, but Grimwald used his talon to wrench her shield back and raised his green, curved dagger high to stab at her collarbone.

Fortunately Gwendolyn was faster, her sword intercepting the dagger in a sparking clash of steel. Grimwald was forced to dodge back from Gwendolyn’s follow up slice, after which he darted to the right and kicked out with his hind legs, raking Gwendolyn’s side as she tried to evade. However this left him open as Cheerilee appeared behind him, eyes hard as steel, and she delivered a braced elbow strike to his back. Grimwald grunted, rolling around and slicing with his remaining dagger. Cheerilee threw herself back, taking a light cut across her chest but nothing deep.

Ditzy, no longer on the defensive, rushed in again, using the shield as a battering ram while Grimwald was still trying to recover his momentum. Grimwald ducked under her, slashing with his curved dagger at her belly, but Ditzy could feel his attack coming, sensing the brush of air as he moved. Banking sideways, she just managed to get her shield in place to defend herself, feeling the dagger cut along the wood’s surface in a loud scrape of noise.

Gwendolyn came in from above, blade pointed down in a killing thrust as she dived like a hunting hawk, but there was a flash of green from Grimwald and Gwendolyn let out a cry of pain as Grimwald’s dagger, which he’d just thrown, planted itself in her left arm just below the shoulder.

She hadn’t expected him to just disarm himself like that, and Gwendolyn had to pull out of her dive to keep from outright crashing, and even then she barely landed without spilling herself into a heap. With a pained shout she tore the dagger from her arm, knowing full well the wound wasn’t going to heal easily due to this weapon’s cursed properties as she dropped it. Cheerilee moved to defend Gwendolyn, interposing herself between the downed griffiness and Grimwald.

Grimwald had taken the moment to rush for where his other dagger had been laying after Ditzy swept it away, not quite falling off the side of the rampart wall.

Ditzy rushed him to try to intercept, but the moment she realized she wouldn’t reach in time she let her instincts guide her and took a page right out of Grimwald’s book. In a flash she loosened the straps on her shield and flung her arm out. Grimwald grabbed his dagger and triumphantly spun about to face her, expecting her to be charging at him, but instead he caught a flying shield right to his gut. He crumbled with the air exploding out of his lungs, and before he fully recovered a gray missile in the shape of Ditzy Doo crashed right into him, and both went flying over the side of the wall.

“Ditzy!” Cheerilee shouted, and before she was even done shouting Gwendolyn, clutching her bleeding arm, flew over the wall to give chase. She was just in time to see the pair of Ditzy and Grimwald plummet down about twenty feet towards a lower tier walkway.

The two tumbled about with wings and limbs entangled, both wrestling for control of Grimwald’s dagger. This caused them to shift course to impact with the side wall before falling down the last ten feet to the lower rampart, but before they impacted Ditzy suddenly let go of Grimwald. She’d felt something falling beside her and on gut instinct knew it to be her shield. Grabbing it without looking, she held it with both hooves and brought it down like a giant flying pancake just as Grimwald stabbed upward with his dagger.

The Fey weapon pierced the shield’s wood, coming within a scant inch of Ditzy’s face, but her weight behind the shield, plus the sudden impact with the ramparts below, resulted in Grimwald getting a face full of shield with Ditzy’s full weight behind it.

He let out a squawk and went limp, Ditzy on top of him. She quickly pulled her shield back, swaying about as she got her hooves on steady ground. Looking at her shield, she still saw Grimwald’s dagger planted in it, then blinking she looked at him. Grimwald was laying on his back, legs and wings splayed as his glazed eyes blinked dizzily upward. He groaned and shook his head, putting a talon to a bleeding scalp that was soon blocking his vision in red. Raising up slightly, he found Ditzy standing over him, shield strapped back on, and Fey dagger held daintily in one hoof. Before he could move further, Gwendolyn landed beside him, blade lowered at his neck, ready to strike. Up above on the higher tier of the wall, Cheerilee watched, unable to jump down from that height.

Grimwald grunted, then threw his talons up in a helpless shrug, cracking a blood stained smile, “Looks like your win, Bright Eyes. Heheh.”

“I don’t see what’s funny about this,” Gwendolyn said, “At this point, the best you can expect is a long, boring life in whatever jail cell you end up in, assuming you don’t get the noose. Sky’s sake, Grimwald, was any of this even worth it!?”

“Hehehe, for a guy like me, completely. Every second of this has been a treat, even losing. Got to cause some mayhem, see you perform, which is always a pleasure Gwen, and to top it off...” his eyes glittered at Ditzy, “Found myself a real diamond in the rough. Jail? Small price to pay for one of the best few days I’ve had in a long time. Besides, things aren’t quite over yet. All comes down to what happens up top between Ditzy’s blue friend and the kirin royals. I was just the side show this time around.”

Gwendolyn made a sour face, “Ugh, I hate it when you’re right, but whatever... Ditzy, you and Cheerilee had best go rejoin the rest of your friends.”

“What about you?” Ditzy asked.

“Hmph, somecreature needs to keep an eye on this madbird and- crap!” Gwendolyn suddenly moved in front of Ditzy as Grimwald made a gesture with a talon, and something sprang from the sleeve of his tunic and into his waiting fingers. Ditzy caught sight of some kind of glass vial that Grimwald crushed in his talon, and suddenly a piercing flash of light and sound enveloped them.

By the time her eyes cleared, she and Gwendolyn were alone on the rampart, although at least Ditzy still had a hold of Grmwald’s Fey dagger, so she knew he hadn’t been able to slink away into any solid walls or floors. Instead, from seeming nowhere, as if his voice was carried on the wind, they heard Grimwald’s laughter.

“Keep the dagger, Bright Eyes, as a souvenir. And don’t lose that killer instinct.”

“Argh, that bastard!” Gwendolyn shouted, flying up a bit as she looked around, “Where did he run off too!?” She looked up at Cheerilee, but she in turn just shrugged.

“I... don’t think he’s coming back,” Ditzy said, eyeing the dagger uneasily for a moment. After all this was the mysterious magical weapon of Fey origin that had put her into a near eternal slumber. She wasn’t exactly eager to keep it. Perhaps she’d give it to Princess Luna?”

“What makes you think that?” Gwendolyn asked, and Ditzy offered an awkward smile.

“He just sort of sounded like a friend does when they’re saying goodbye for a while, that’s all.”

“Pfft, crazy bird has so many screws loose I doubt he even knows what he’s saying half the time,” Gwendolyn grumbled, and then grunted as she landed again and looked over her injured arm. Ditzy came up to check it as well.

“I’m not in any condition to fight further,” Gwendolyn said with a pained sight, “I can look after myself. You two better go catch up with the others.”

“Okay, just promise you’ll be careful. This didn’t hit an artery, but it’s still bleeding pretty bad,” Ditzy said in a serious tone, “Go find something to bandage this up with as soon as you can.”

“Heh, not my first battle, or injury, Ditzy. I’ll be fine,” Gwendolyn said, already using her beak to tear off strips of cloth from her tunic to begin wrapping the wound. Ditzy was still a little hesitant to leave her alone, but knew there wasn’t a lot of time to discuss it. Even as they talked, the fortress rumbled and shook beneath them as Rengoku strained against the binding magic stemming from Princess Luna and Corona. It didn’t seem like that standoff could last forever.

With a final nod to Gwendolyn, Ditzy took to the air and flew up to join Cheerilee, and together the pair went back the way they had come, hoping that their friends were faring well in their own battles.

----------

Lyra was blasted back by the impact of sonic force that hit her side like a bowling ball. Pain rushed through her, but she managed to keep a tight grip on her lyre as she rolled with the hit and came up on her hooves up against the edge of the lift platform in the center of the chamber.

Andrea’s forehooves conjured up a storm of violent fiddle beats like the charging of a hundred cervid warriors, the red elk moving in a dancer’s gait as she leaped over a thrown jar from Carrot Top that broke uselessly some distance behind Andrea in a burst of adhesive goo.

“Come my valiant rivals, my blood is only just starting to get hot! You can’t be done yet!” Andrea sang, fiddle’s tempo somehow gaining even more momentum as she turned on the edges of her hind hooves to aim at Frederick, who’d been trying to skulk around behind her with his makeshift club, “Even you, my Prince, I expected more of!”

“Frederick!” Carrot Top cried out as Andrea unleashed a sharp tune and a curved blade of sonic force sliced vertically towards the cervid royal. Frederick let out a yelp as he rolled to the side, the cutting musical force tearing a gouge in the stone floor beside him.

“Andrea, I’m fairly certain that this counts as some brand of treason,” he said, “At the very least, I think you’ll be kicked out of the Lodge of Skalds. Really, what is this madness all for?”

Frederick regarded his club, then Andrea carefully as he spoke, then with rather no warning he chucked the club at her like a frisbee. Andrea let out a chiming chuckle and snapped the club in half with a strum of her fiddle that created a cracking whip of force, “I already told you true, my Prince, I seek only to experience a new age of conflict worthy of... Hey, stop running!”

Frederick had turned about and scampered backwards, snatching up some loose stones from where Andrea’s magic had torn the ground earlier. Meanwhile Lyra had used his distraction to catch her breath and maneuver behind Andrea, prepping her lyre for a new spell song. Her magic spread out around her in a cone, aimed at Andrea. Into the weave of shimmering gold she put forth soothing tunes, her hooves gracing her lyre’s strings in a serene harmony.

Andrea yawned as the wave hit her, but then the red elk shook herself fiercely, amber mane almost seeming to dance about her head like flame as she rounded on Lyra, “Trying to lull me to sleep with such a tepid noise!? No, Lyra, I shan't fall to such an easy spell! Feel the heat of my soul in these chords and know you’ll need to hit me ten times harder to win this duel!”

Her fiddle moved so fast, the bow of it actually sparked, and suddenly flames leaped up in the shape of cervid runes. Those runes burned bright then transformed into solid javelins of fire, about eight of them that launched themselves at Lyra in a barrage.

Lyra stood her ground and conjured forth a string of courageous notes from her lyre, which resonated in front of her to form a vertical dome of sound that acted as a protective barrier upon which the flaming javelins impacted. Even with the barrier in place, the explosions that resulted from the javelins of concentrated rune magic still seared the air around Lyra so that she couldn’t breath, and the impacts drove her back several steps, closer to the edge of the lift shaft.

Still undaunted, Lyra stood firm and quickly broke into a new, fast paced song, its swift chirping beat not unlike the buzzing wings of a bee. Magic coursed from her lyre in golden strings, but rather than attack Andrea, they shot out to touch Carrot Top and Frederick, suffusing them with a soft golden glow. The spell lightened their hooves and filled them with a feeling like having taken a dose of pure caffeine, and abruptly both Carrot Top and Frederick found themselves moving at an enhanced speed.

This meant that Frederick could take his small pile of grabbed stones and begin hurling them like a rapid-fire sling. At the same time Carrot Top was able to quickly close the distance to Andrea, reaching into her alchemist pouch to withdraw one of her few remaining clay jars.

Andrea danced away from Frederick’s stone barrage, using her fiddle’s bladed edge to deflect one or two that got too close. However, the moment she did so to one of them she noticed that a very small rune had been etched upon the stone’s surface, likely by Frederick’s own hoof point. While the Prince was not a skilled rune caster by any stretch of the imagination, he was still of royal blood and been well educated in the basics. The rune spell was nothing special. It merely created a festive burst of harmless sparks upon impact, meant as little more than entertainment for young ones at festivals. But the small burst of fiery sparks and smoke still broke Andrea’s concentration briefly, allowing Carrot Top an opening to all but shove her clay jar straight towards her target and smash open the top.

Her target wasn’t Andrea herself, but her fiddle. And what sprayed out of the clay jar was a slippery liquid of a pale green color, akin to the slime off an eel. The oily liquid splattered all over the fiddle, and as Andrea instinctively wove the fiddle’s bow over it to try and strike Carrot Top with a spell, she found the string’s sounds were all off as the bow slipped over the oil.

“Hah! Let’s see you do anything now! Lyra, get her!” Carrot Top shouted, and Lyra was fast to oblige.

Her hooves wove across her lyre’s strings, golden motes of magic from her horn floating between each resonant note. From the instrument sprang a spiral of misty gold light that snaked towards Andrea and wrapped around her, tight as any binding rope to hold the cervid in place. For a moment Andrea was stock still, limbs frozen, and Lyra started to breathe a sigh of relief as she saw her rival’s fiddle start to fall towards the ground as it slipped from Andrea’s grip.

Yet it was then that fire alit deep in Andrea’s eyes as she let out a melodious bellow like the sound of a big brass horn. It was a defiant note, the beginning of a war song that rang out as loud as a dragon’s roar. Runes began to flare to crimson life upon the fiddle, which burst into flames, aided by the oil that had caused it to slip from Andrea’s grip in the first place. Carrot Top looked at the fiddle, whose flames started to glow brighter in a dangerous intensity, and backpedaled even as Frederick rushed towards her. With Lyra’s hastening spell still in effect he was fast enough to tackle Carrot Top away and shield her with his body as the fiddle’s runic energies exploded outward in a ball of fire that rocked the chamber.

Lyra was far enough away that she was unharmed, other than the ringing in her ears. As the smoke cleared she saw a groaning Frederick, with scorch marks on his back, being held by a shocked Carrot Top.

“F-Frederick, hold on! I’ve got you,” Carrot Top said breathlessly, trying carefully to turn him over so she could reach his burn wounds with a vial of medicinal salve from her alchemist pouch.

Shaking her head to try to clear out the ringing in her ears, Lyra looked towards where Andrea had been, and was bowled over as the red elk, shockingly unharmed by the point blank burst of flames, charged right into her. Lyra was nearly knocked off the ledge of the lift and into the shaft, only barely able to reach with her fore hooves to hold herself as her back end dangled over a very long drop down the central shaft of the fortress. Her lyre lay where she had just dropped it, a bare foot out of reach.

“What the-!?” Lyra half gasped, staring at Andrea, who brushed her jerkin with a hoof and showed a few glowing red runes etched almost invisibly into the fabric.

“Cervid warriors like explosive finishes to their ballads, Lyra,” Andrea said, “I’ve long since woven runes into my attire to keep from injuring myself, although my poor fiddle wasn’t so lucky.”

She used a hoof to lightly kick the burned bit of char that was her fiddle a moment ago, although Andrea didn’t seem that bothered by its loss. “I’ll have to carve a new one, but I’ve means enough to finish this with the power of my voice alone. I am a Skald of Elkheim, after all.”

Andrea began scraping the marks of a rune into the platform with a hoof. The runes on her fiddle had given its notes and her voice power before, and it seemed like she still needed runes to act as a focus for cervid magic, even in song. Lyra, not content to wait to see what Andrea was about to do, lit up her horn brighter and grabbed her lyre with her magic. Lifting the instrument, she conjured a light and swift tune of high and whimsical notes, which brought forth an illusionary set of golden birds. Trixie was the true illusionist of the group, but Lyra could pull a few herself, if nowhere near as realistic as her friend’s phantasms. The flock of gold songbirds still served to swarm Andrea’s face with a storm of flapping wings, enough to distract the red elk a few moments as Lyra strained to clamber back up onto the lift.

Then, lacking any other immediate means of offense, Lyra relied on something rather blunt and unlike a bard. Her hooves. With a hefty shout she did her best Raindrops impression and jumped up and brought her right hoof down at Andrea’s face as hard as she could.

For a wonder, she struck true, and let out a sharp curse as pain wracked her hoof. She wasn’t so used to punching creatures, really. There was a satisfying, meaty smack as the hit landed across Andrea’s snout. However, the red elk did not drop. Instead she looked at Lyra with a momentary pause of surprise, followed by a glint of respect as Andrea wiped a bloody nose.

“Not bad. Thanks for the blood. It’s a pain drawing onto a hard stone surface with a hoof.”

Lyra blinked, then realized Andrea was using her own blood from the bloody snout to rapidly finish the rune she’d been trying to scratch.

“Oh crap-” Lyra started to saw as Andrea let out a deep, melodious warcry and the rune flared up in the deepest colors of red.

A shattering of noise wrinkled the air, the lift, Andrea, and Lyra alike. Lyra let out a soundless cry as she near felt her bones rattling in her skin from the resonating vibrations. Andrea weathered them with raw cervid constitution, but the lift didn’t fare so well, and Lyra gauged that was because most of the noise from the burst of raw sound the rune triggered was directed into the lift itself.

Lyra saw the whole thing bend and twist, then come apart beneath her hooves as Andrea sought to leap back from what was about to be a very long fall.

Lyra was having none of that, knowing full well that Andrea would easily finish off Carrot Top and Frederick if she was allowed to escape. With no other choice, Lyra used her magic to grab Andrea mid-jump, even as she herself started to fall. Andrea grunted a she was yanked back, and joined Lyra and the broken lift platform in tumbling down the massive shaft.

With air rushing past her, Lyra found it difficult to concentrate, but with a supreme effort of will she took hold of her lyre, which was falling by her side. While still keeping a magical grip on Andrea, Lyra brought her instrument close and plucked a few chiming notes, as fast as she dared. Down below she could make out nothing but darkness, but she knew the shaft didn’t go down forever, but only to the bottom of Rengoku itself. She’d have to time this just right to keep from becoming a very messy form of modern art.

Light began to filter in from below, and Lyra spotted the bottom of the shaft, which looked like some manner of interconnected steel walkways overhanging an open hole into the deep ocean that the fortress was flying over. She wasn’t sure what the point of the walkways was for. Maintenance access, perhaps? She did see strange crystals mounted along the walls that glowed with faint violet light, but couldn't’ guess their purpose. Not that she had a lot of time to consider the fortress’ strange architecture. With a grunt of effort Lyra angled herself towards one of the catwalks and finished her spell the second she gauged she was at the right distance.

Her downward motion suddenly slowed, until it began little more than the gentle wafting of a feather. Her timing had been just right to allow her to alight upon one of the four large intersecting walkways of grated metal. With her breathing heavy and her body sweat covered from adrenaline, she turned to where she was setting Andrea down, about a dozen paces down the catwalk. The red elk was looking at her in a considering manner, and Lyra readied her lyre, eyes narrowed to gold blade edges.

“I could have just let you keep falling,” Lyra pointed out plainly..

“Aye. Some would have called that the wiser course of action,” Andrea said, “I’ve no intention of being taken prisoner and returning to Elkheim in disgrace. This day is either ending in glorious victory, or equally glorious death.”

“No offense Andrea, but that’s a load of hot horseapples!” Lyra shot back, glaring, “None of this is a damned story! There’s no glory here! No grand cause or new age! It’s just you and a bunch of other sun-baked idiots putting countless lives in danger without any right to do so! Sure, maybe one or two of you have a noble reason, but that doesn’t matter when your actions put creatures' lives at risk that you have no right to risk! Especially you, who are only doing any of this because... what, you think it’s exciting!? That’ll it’ll make a good tale for the ale halls?”

“Hmph... I thought at the end of it all at least you, a fellow teller of tales, might understand. You’ve lived through grand adventures, Dame Lyra Heartstrings!” Andrea shouted back, head held high even as her voice cracked with something akin to... admiration? Desperation? Both? “You’ve faced a goddess and spat in her eye! You’ve battled tyrants and monsters alike! Unlike I, you earned the title of champion. All I did was become skilled at telling the tales of others, and it was... not enough. But here, in this place, in this moment, I can carve a ballad of my own. Here, I face a champion true, and to whatever end, I can go to that end proudly, for it was my story!”

Lyra closed her eyes with a deeply sucked in breath and then let it out gradually as she steadied her nerves and then opened her eyes to fix Andrea with a cutting stare. “No, Andrea. This isn’t any one creature’s story. The world is everycreature’s story, together, and not a single individual has the right to act like their part in it is more important than any others. Not me, and not you.”

With that, she was done talking. Her body ached, and her stamina was flagging, but she definitely reared up with her lyre held magically beside her and charged forward at a full gallop. Golden magic flowed over her lyre’s strings, bringing forth a chiming battle hymn. A bubble of focused sound shot out upon flaring sparks of magic, flying right at Andrea. The red elk used blood from her snout to draw a rune on her throat, which burned bright red as she sang a bellowing note that created a thunderous wave that clashed with Lyra’s bubble of sound and drowned it out with it’s own force. Lyra hit the wave of Andrea’s conjured sound and was knocked off her hooves, bones rattling.

Stubbornly she kept her magical grip on her lyre, and plucked more strings in a lulling, slow tune. Floating notes shaped from magic rose from the instrument and wafted towards Andrea. If they struck, they would impart a slowing enchantment to make the cervid feel as if everything was moving through syrup, even her own senses. Andrea must have recognized the spell, for she gave a wry half smile and chanted a countersong, the rune on her throat blazing bright.

However, as she did this, Lyra was strumming a different tune on her lyre, yet at the same time she chanted in a swift spell song under her breath. She could already tell Andrea was winning out in a battle of attrition. The red elk still looked fresh to go, while every moment Lyra was getting more and more tired. For all of Andrea’s talk of Lyra being the true champion between them, it was clear the cervid had more constitution for battle, likely from growing up in a warrior culture. Lyra had known she was never going to win this in a head on manner... but that had been exactly why she’d challenged Andrea by charging at her.

Having finished chanting the spell under her breath, she kept playing her lyre more loudly, bringing out another bubble of sound that she hurled at Andrea. This time Andrea looked almost disappointed as she used fresh blood from her bleeding snout to draw runes on her right foreleg and with a drumming chant of her own she encased her right hoof in a glove of raw sound that she used to punch Lyre’s bubble away.

“I know you must be stronger than this. You couldn’t have survived all that you have if this was your limit, Dame Lyra Heartstrings. So come at me with something harder, already!” Andrea shouted, leaping close and coming down hard with her sound encased hoof. Lyra barely scrambled back, dropping her lyre in the process as Andrea’s hoof bent the metal catwalk slightly beneath her blow.

Lyra put a frightened look on as she stumbled back further from Andrea, slowly tugging at her lyre with her magic. Andrea stepped on the instrument, stopping it in its tracks as the red elk looked on with a forlorn look in her eyes. “Are you actually... scared? After all that big talk? A champion can’t afford to be scared. Damn you, Heartstrings, give me more than this! Fight back harder!”

Andrea took a deep breath and started singing a new song, a heated tune that began to conjure flames from the rune on her throat. Yet her hoof was still holding Lyra’s instrument in place...

Just as Lyra had hoped. The unicorn bard’s frightful look vanished, a simple bit of acting on her part, and she smiled, “Not harder. Smarter.”

One benefit of having Trixie Lulamoon as a friend was that Lyra had a fellow practitioner of unicorn magic to sharpen her skills with. They may have had different specialties with Lyra’s music based magic and Trixie’s love of illusioncraft, but there was still enough similarity in the arcane arts for them to mutually grow as spellcasters. In Lyra’s case, pushing even simple spells harder than the norm was just one trick, but even more useful was the ability to cast a spell and then delay it’s activation for the right moment.

She’d used the weakest possible version of her sound bubbles earlier to get Andrea to drop her guard. Now, she activated the strongest one she could, held delayed in her lyre after she’d cast a weaker one earlier to distract Andrea, while the chant under her breath had generated her real attack. Upon a simple command chant, sung in one loud note, the lyre beneath Andrea’s hoof burst with a bubble of golden sound energy three times larger than the previous ones.

The explosion of raw sound force actually deformed the steel walkway, bending it so badly that it turned more into a steep ramp bent on its side. Andrea had been flung back by the blast of force, and slammed into the steel walkway at just the edge of where the steel was sharply bent downward.

“Oh crap!” Lyra didn’t even pay attention to the fact that her instrument had fallen off the walkway to the glittering ocean below, instead focused on rushing over and flinging her hooves out to catch the cervid before the dazed Andrea could fall off as well.

Still, momentum being what it was, Lyra was dragged off as well, even as one hoof wrapped around Andrea’s own limp fore leg. With another swear, Lyra managed to grip the edge of the catwalk with her other hoof, but now she was left precariously dangling along a steep steel ramp her spell had made of the walkway, with nothing but merciless blue ocean spanning hundreds of feet below her and Andrea.

Regaining her senses, Andrea blinked at the position she was in, with only Lyra’s hoofgrip between her and a very potentially lethal fall. The red elk then sighed and looked up at Lyra, who was struggling to try and lift herself and Andrea up. Lyra was nearly entirely out of magic, the bulk of what she had left having been used on her last gambit. She tried lifting Andrea with magic, but she didn’t have enough left to do more than delay her weakening grip.

“Let go...” Andrea said, and Lyra shook her head.

“Not a...arg...chance. Gonna... see you... in proper jail... ugh... stupid gravity.”

“You don’t have the strength to lift us both, bard. Not in your muscles, or any left in your magic.” Andrea said, her voice oddly calm, “There’s no point in both of us perishing. It’s okay. I am willing to face death.”

“Shut...up, gugh... rather you face, mrrrgh, justice instead.”

A rough chuckle escaped Andrea, and Lyra felt the cervid shift as she reached up with her free hoof and got a grip on the hoof Lyra was using to hold her. “If it makes you feel any better about this, Heartstrings, there’s little doubt I would have faced execution for my crimes back in Elkheim. So this... isn’t your doing. This is not your burden to carry.”

“W-wait, stop it! I can-” Lyra started to shout, feeling Andrea’s rather powerful hoof pushing hard enough on her own to loosen her grip. She wasn’t able to get to the whole of what she was going to say before Andrea slipped out of her grasp. Lyra felt herself freeze as she stared at Andrea, seeing the red elk in crystal clarity. Andrea was smiling as she fell, born away towards the ocean below... too far below for any creature to reasonably survive.

“Andrea!”

Lyra’s shout was carried away on the wind, her eyes fixed on the falling form of her foe. Then, she saw something. A flicker of motion against the blue of the ocean. Something flying? Lyra blinked, trying to focus on it. It was dark, and sped across the sky fast towards Andrea. The form intercepted the falling cervid, and when the form spread its wings from its dive Lyra was finally able to make it out.

A griffin!? Wait... she recognized those feather colors. Grimwald!?

Lyra just hung there, shocked as she watched the distant form of Grimwald bearing Andrea away. From the direction he was flying, he wasn’t angling back towards the Isle of the Fallen, or seeking to return to Rengoku. No, it looked like he was flying west. West, towards the mainland. Had Andrea known he was there to catch her? No, she had looked too resigned. But if Grimwald was flying free, did that mean that Ditzy Doo was-!?

“Lyra!”

The heartful shout of worry made Lyra look up instantly, and was greeted by the worried and rapidly approaching form of the very pegasus she’d just been worrying about. Ditzy Doo rushed down, gray wings buzzing as she hovered next to Lyra and quickly grabbed the bard, helping haul Lyra up back onto the stable portion of the walkway.

“Are you okay?” Ditzy asked, hugging Lyra tight and looking her over like a worried mother hen checking a chick for injuries.

“Y-yeah, I’m alright.” Lyra said, sucking in deep breaths for a second or two before wiping sweat from her brow and hugging Ditzy back, “I’m glad you’re okay too. When I saw Grimwald I thought he must’ve got you and Cheerilee. Is she alright as well?”

“She is, but what was that about Grimwald? Me, Cheerilee, and Gwendolyn beat him, but he got away! Where did you see him?”

“Heh... looks like yours got away too, then,” Lyra said with a huff of a laugh, gesturing down at the busted walkway, “I beat Andrea, but the crazy lady would’ve rather taken a skydive than let me capture her. Sore loser. I thought she was done for, but then Grimwald caught her. Last I saw, they were flying west, away from this whole mess.”

“Oh.” Ditzy said, blinking a few times, but then her face lit up brightly with a smile as pleasant as a fresh breeze, “Good!”

“Uh, the bad guys got away, Ditzy. I mean, I’m glad I didn’t have to watch Andrea plaster herself across the waves, but I’d rather we’d caught them.”

“Huh? Oh me too, but I mean good because I hope I got through to Grimwald a little. Maybe I did if he decided to go save his friend?”

Lyra could only look at her optimistic friend and feel a mote of content happiness in that moment, despite the fact that they were still in a dangerous set of circumstances. “Ditzy, did I ever tell you you’re pretty amazing?”

“Umm, maybe? If you did I don’t recall. Heh, don’t mind hearing it. Oh! No time for talking about that! We’ve got to go find Raindrops! Carrot Top and Frederick are up top, and Gwendolyn was bandaging herself up. If we hurry, we can figure out where Raindrops went with those two zebra and help out!”

“Admire the positive outlook, Ditzy, and wouldn’t mind a ride back up the shaft here,” Lyra said, looking around for her lyre and feeling her heart sink when she didn’t spot it. If worse came to worst she could replace it, or maybe ask Princess Luna for a little help in retrieving it from the bottom of the sea, but that would have to wait.

Ditzy grabbed Lyra around the waist and started carrying Lyra back up the long central shaft of the fortress. While Ditzy certainly was eager to go find Raindrops, Lyra had a feeling that whatever had happened between their friend, that zebra Tendaji, and the old stallion Nuru, it was going to be long over by now.

----------

A short while earlier...

Raindrop’s shoulder blades between her wings were itching with the need to take action, but she restrained herself as she followed Tendaji and Nuru through the unnaturally lit corridors of Rengoku. The withered old zebra appeared to know precisely where he was going, which struck Raindrops as odd given there was no way he could have been in the fortress before. As if her mind was an open parchment to him, Nuru spoke softly to her unasked query.

“Tomoko was kind enough to show me a map leading to where I desired to go. It is not far, Raindrops of Equestria.”

“What are you leading us to?” she asked, eyes glittering with suspicion.

“You will see in a moment, and perhaps then, both of you will understand my Path.”

Raindrops flicked a look towards Tendaji, but the younger zebra wore a resolute mask upon his features, no break at all in the rhythm of his steps. She somehow doubted if she tried tackling Nuru now while his back was turned that Tendaji would help. A part of her was curious, but it was hard for her to care about Nuru’s motivations while she knew every second was a moment her friends were locked in their own life or death struggles.

At least it turned out that Nuru was good on his word, as after only a few turns did they come to a smaller version of the elevator platform that had existed in the main shaft. This one was a small hexagonal platform situated in a shaft that went in a curving downward motion. The moment they stepped on it the elevator moved with a mystical whine of energies from the crystals mounted along the walls. In moments they went down several floors before coming to rest at the entrance to a long, egg-shaped chamber that was wider at the far side than it was where the elevator dropped them off.

Nuru stepped out, Raindrops and Tendaji following, and she looked around with a questioning flick of her ears. The walls were lined with metallic pods, each one sized about twice the height of Princess Luna. Strange saurian symbols graced the pods along the lines of right-angled seams not unlike teeth. Each pod was attached to a circular tablet covered in raised symbols that in turn was mounted on the wall. Along the center of the room were several more pods, but these ones were smaller, laying at slight angles on metallic scaffolds, and these pods were open along the toothy seams, making them look like creatures with their mouths gaping open.

Within each pod was a bed of sorts, with snaking tubes lining the upper mouth of the pod that bore unsavory hooks upon them. Along the sides of the pods were glass tubes, within which a bubbling, glowing purple fluid resided.

Nuru approached one of these smaller pods, running a hoof along the metal edge of one of the seams. A tension in his shoulders that Raindrops had not even realized was there until that moment appeared to drain right out of the old zebra as he sat down on his haunches and hung his head in relief. “Right where she said they would be. If they work, then all of this weight was worth carrying.”

“Father, explain.” Tendaji stepped forward, Raindrops right beside him.

Nuru looked over at the pair, his pale eyes watering slightly. Had he been holding back tears? But the moisture vanished and Nuru stood back on all four legs to turn and face them, face a weathered mountain of long held determination. “The saurians who built Rengoku kept warrior slaves to help in the conquest of territory. While I claim no knowledge of what motivated those ancient beasts, it seemed at the least that they liked to keep their servants healthy. Hence they built these devices using their extensive knowledge of alchemy and magic. Healing pods that could restore even a horrifically injured warrior to good health, repairing damaged flesh, cleansing toxins, dispelling magical maladies, and...”

His eyes focused keenly on Tendaji, “Curing nearly any disease imaginable.”

Raindrops had gotten to know Tendaji just well enough to spot when the usually stoic zebra was rattled, and the sweat that beaded his brow now was clear to see as he took a step back as if struck. He opened his mouth to speak, but for that moment no words came out. Raindrops was a bit faster on the mental recovery, although her mind did race.

“So you did all this to, what, cure Tendaji of that disease he has? But how did you know these were even here in the first place? Tomoko?”

“Abbess Serene, actually,” Nuru said simply, “The Abbess knows more of Rengoku than anycreature alive, including the accounts of the two surviving champions who felled the Warlord long ago. It was those accounts that described the healing chamber and it’s pods. Apparently it was how one of those champions survived a fatal wound.”

“Right, so when the Abbess was looking for co-conspirators she must have found out about Tendaji’s condition, and floated the idea to you that if you helped her with stealing Rengoku, you could use these pods? I pretty much got the jist of it?” Raindrops asked, to which she saw Nuru respond with a stiff nod.

“You see my Path clearly, even without the aid of maisha to guide your vision. Yes, the Abbess told me of her scheme, knowing full well what I would do for my family. I had little hesitation in accepting her offer, and now here we stand.”

Finally Tendaji spoke, his normally controlled voice rough with a struggle to contain the note of pain in it, “Father, you would make use of unnatural magic to try and destroy my own Path? You helped cause all of this chaos, put the lives of innocents at risk, just for this!?”

Nuru’s voice was a leathery whip crack, “Fool boy! I do this for Aisha! I told you long ago that the disease in your blood would never be cured by anything short of utter mastery of maisha, a mastery even I have been unable to achieve after a lifetime of effort. Yet you, in all your pride and arrogance, still think you can achieve it? That it is your ‘Path’? Only in legend has a purity of body and spirit to the degree necessary to banish all illness from the self been achievable by practitioners of our martial art. None in living memory have done it. Yet you think you can? All the while making my daughter suffer in waiting for the day the two of you might start a family? No, my boy, no. Your vision of your Path is flawed, whereas my Path is clear.”

He gestured simply with one grayed hoof to the ancient saurian healing device, his eyes narrowed to pale horizons. “Get in the pod, or I shove you in it myself.”

Tendaji looked at the pod’s cold, steel confines, at the bizarre hooked tubes within, and then at his father in law’s unrelenting and utterly serious stare. With a deep breath the young zebra drew himself up and adopted a steady fighting stance. “I’m sorry, father, but I cannot. You may have no faith in my Path, but I’ll not step off of it for the dubious shortcut you offer. I... have always regretted that I cannot yet give Aisha a foal, something I know she desires. Yet she herself took me as her husband in full knowledge of my Path, and in the belief it was her Path to walk beside me. Her love has ever given me the strength to pursue that seemingly impossible goal of cleansing my body through mastery of maisha.” He glanced at Raindrops, a note of apology in his eyes, “It is a Path that at times has led me to dark places, and into conflict with others of nobler soul. Yet I shall continue to walk it, until the end.”

Raindrops managed to give him an encouraging smirk before lifting into the air on a steady wingbeat and took on a fighting stance of her own, “You heard him, Nuru. He doesn’t want what you’re offering.”

“It is no ‘offer’, children, but a simple choice of whether Tendaji would be conscious or beaten unconscious upon entering the pod,” Nuru replied simply, taking a simple step away from the healing pod and brushing some dust off of his hooves before slipping into a relaxed pose with his right forehoof held out and his other three hooves poised slightly back. With his right hoof, he made a ‘come’ gesture, “But I can see that words are lost on you young ones, and I’d rather not waste time. One way or another I am curing my foolish son in law.”

For all her bravado, Raindrops did feel a distinct pinprick of chilly needles down her back as she felt an intense mountain of pressure wafting off of Nuru. He hadn’t even moved, and had a fairly relaxed stance, yet every instinct of Raindrops was screaming at her that to attack him would be a fool’s errand. Suppressing a gulp, she flicked a look at Tendaji and whispered, “Uh, do you think we have a chance here?”

Tendaji gave a very rare, if rather sardonic smile as he whispered back, “Truthfully? Not a good one. He is a master of masters. Our only hope is our numerical advantage, and luck.”

“Luck, huh? Here’s hoping I’ve got some stored up.” Raindrops said, turning her full attention back to Nuru, who didn’t seem to be in a rush to kick things off himself. Indeed the elderly zebra looked quite content to let them make the first move, although there was a distinct sense that if they tried to just run for it that he’d catch them quite easily. Not that Raindrops had any notion to run. Yet defeating Nuru was a daunting prospect. She keenly recalled his duel with Kenkuro during the Contest of Strength. The skill and power those two had displayed put any of Raindrop’s own martial arts skill to shame. She was good, and getting better, she knew this. Yet Nuru was on an entirely different plateau of ability, one that bordered on the mythical.

Even with two on one, Raindrops knew this was going to be the most difficult fight she’d experienced in her life up until that point. The only other time she felt in more danger had been when confronting Corona, although in that instance no amount of punching would’ve ever defeated the Tyrant Sun. At least in Nuru’s case she had some confidence that he was mortal and could be beaten, she just didn’t know if she and Tendaji had the skills to actually pull it off.

Well, only one way to find out, and she wasn’t getting any younger.

She trusted Tendaji to compliment her attacks with his own, so there was no need to signal or give him a heads up as she went straight up with a hefty flap of her wings and arced forward towards Nuru. She turned her body sideways at the halfway point of her arc so that as she dove, it was now with her right hindleg extended in a dropping axe kick.

Tendaji followed her lead, rushing beneath her arc and bending low, using his forelegs to plant himself while spinning into a sideways kick aimed at Nuru’s own legs in a hopeful sweep.

Raindrops barely saw what happened, as Nuru appeared less to move so much as just appear in a new position, one where he was standing perfectly balanced on top of Tendaji’s kicking leg with just his own hindlegs. In that same instant Nuru’s forearms came up and crossed around Raindrop’s falling kick. She felt what was not so much an impact as the simple and utter halting of her motion, and before she knew it she was being spun around like a wet towel and catapulted towards the far wall at the back of the room.

She managed to correct herself in mid-air and spread her wings out to slow her motion, but Nuru had thrown her with such force that even then she still smacked into the metal wall hard enough to rattle her and drop her to the ground in a heap.

Tendaji didn’t fare much better, turning his sideways kick into a rolling uppercut, but Nuru flipped off of Tendaji’s leg and batted aside the incoming hoof like and adult shoving aside an overly playful puppy. A flash of black and white blurs were all Raindrops could see of Nuru’s hooves as Tendaji was battered from all angles and sent sprawling with a punch to the jaw that made her wince, even from across the room.

Nuru, not even breathing hard, brushed off a bit of blood from Tendaji’s snout that had gotten onto his face, then started to advance on the younger zebra as Tendaji struggled to stand.

Raindrops vaulted forward, using her wings to propel herself at first in a straight on dash, but then tried to fake Nuru out by at the last momment using her right wing like a limb to smack the ground and instead change her course to spin to the side and come at Nuru from the side. Her strong right hoof shot in but was met with a firm block from Nuru. It felt like hitting an ancient, thick oak tree. Hard, unyielding. She’d cracked through stone with her strength, but Nuru held against her punch with one hoof as if he was holding back an infant.

Her senses, much keener now than they’d ever been before the Contest, could almost feel the electric tingle in the air that stemmed from Nuru. A pressure that indicated the zebra’s use of maisha, the mysterious inherent magic of the zebra. It made the frail looking old equine feel more like an unyielding mountain, against which she was but a novice just getting her hooves under her.

Yet she knew this was, in part, merely a factor of wills. Nuru was still flesh and blood, like her. He might know more tricks, have more experience, and possess some special know-how with a magic foreign to Equestria, but if she let his presence overwhelm her then she would be useless to her friends when it came to face a real challenge like Corona again. Raindrops was quite past doubting herself, not after all she’d gone through this past year.

So she did not relent, coming in with a haymaker left that was, in truth, a feint. She used the momentum of the haymaker to suddenly snap up with her left knee, hoping to catch Nuru in the chest and knock the breath out of him. He was more than aware of her feint and back stepped with shocking speed, causing her to only hit air. Nuru then came right in at her, so quick that Raindrops thought she could almost see an afterimage of the zebra in his wake. Her left forearm was grabbed and her back legs kicked out from under her and she found herself being planted on the floor with bone crunching force. Nuru started to twist her leg in an arm bar that would rapidly lead to a snapped joint, but at that precise moment Tendaji rushed in from the side.

In a windmill motion the younger zebra spun into a series of kicks that drove Nuru off of Raindrops, spinning in a counter motion to Tendaji that saw him deftly evading each of Tendaji’s kicks with centimeters to spare. Raindrops rolled to her hooves and joined Tendaji, wings buzzing as she threw a set of upper and lower jabs to try and break Nuru’s evasive rhythm. However it was akin to trying to tag mist. Even with her hooves joined in the storming hurricane of blows coming at Nuru, the elder zebra was able to bend and twist his body like a blade of grass against the wind, ever just a hairs’ breadth away from any blow landing.

Then in a single burst of motion Nuru went on the offensive, slipping right past Raindrops and Tendaji’s guard to land twin blows to each of their stomachs, which sent the pair skidding backwards a good twenty or so paces before both were left struggling to catch their breath as they panted and dripped sweat to the cold metal floor.

Nuru, still not having so much as a drop of sweat of his own on his brow, stood calmly on his hind legs and folded his forelegs behind his back, observing them both calmly.

“Are you two done?” he asked. “I’ve indulged your foalish need to assert yourselves, but I do not wish to keep injuring either of you. Tendaji, please just stop this foolishness and get in the pod. Aisha will understand.”

“If... if you believe that, then perhaps you do not know your daughter as well as you think, father,” Tendaji replied, wiping blood from his chin and adopting a fresh fighting stance, “She would not so readily accept what you are doing, and would only be insulted if her husband took a cowardly Path that was untrue to the one he was meant to follow. I desire to give her the family she richly deserves, but not by the unnatural means you propose.”

Nuru’s face grew harsh, his voice dropping an octave, “Then I will console myself with the knowledge that the harm I am about to do to you will be healed along with your disease, boy, once you’re hooked into the pod.”

He tensed, about to attack, but Raindrops had been taking the brief pause in the fight to think, and think fast and hard. Admittedly cleverness was not her strong suit. Trixie and Cheerilee were the planmakers. Yet she knew at this point there was no beating Nuru head on. They needed him to drop his guard, if only for a split second. Skilled as he was, he was still getting on in years, and one solid blow at a critical moment ought to put him down for the count. It was just a matter of actually hitting him.

I’m strong, but I’ve never been that fast. No way I’ll ever hit him as long as he’s a moving target. But... There's something else here. Something he values, and can’t move or dodge at all.

It’d be up to Tendaji to capitalize on what she was about to do, but she figured he was quick-witted enough to know the opening she was intending to make and to take action when the moment came. If not, well... no point worrying over the what ifs. Chances were if this didn’t work they’d both be unconscious and it wouldn’t matter.

Just before Nuru moved to strike, Raindrops turned around and flew into the air. She wasn’t running away, although it might appear that way at first glance. Indeed the mere fact that she appeared to be giving up and trying to flee gave Nuru a second of pause, just long enough for both him and Tendaji to see what Raindrops was really aiming for.

The healing pods.

Raindrops’ talents weren’t that varied, but smashing was indeed among her strongest points. And with wings beating like a tempest and her hooves cocked back, Raindrops did indeed smash into the first healing pod with all of her strength. While the unnatural metal of the pod did not yield to her, the much weaker housing and cables upon which the pod was mounted did, and in a shower of purple magic sparks the first pod went careening off of it’s mount and skidded across the ground.

“W-what are you doing!?” Nuru shouted, his calm finally broken.

“What does it look like?” Raindrops said, rising now high into the air, higher than Nuru could reach, as she aimed herself to dive bomb the next pod, “I’m breaking your stupid pods. Can’t force Tendaji into one if they’re all scrap, can you?”

Of course there were flaws in this apparent plan of hers. There were a lot of healing pods in here, and the chances she’d be able to trash all of them before Nuru would be able to stop her was honestly slim. Yet that wasn’t her actual objective. She didn’t need to smash all of the pods. Just enough to get Nuru to come at her, to be focused entirely on her and her alone, if only for an instant.

And, fueled by a moment of desperation, Nuru did exactly what Raindrops hoped for as she went into a full dive at the next pod. He leaped towards her. It was a damn good leap, too. The kind of flying kick that only a master could perform, and one that she couldn’t dodge.

But it did put Nuru into a committed attack, one wholly focused on her. Because for just that instant, he forgot he had another opponent.

Tendaji came flying at Nuru from the side, in an almost mirror image of the old zebra’s flying kick. And in mid-air there was no way for Nuru, master of martial arts or not, to adjust his course. Raindrops had ensured Nuru would be exactly in the right position for Tendaji to strike, and Tendaji put his all into the kick, pouring every ounce of speed and strength his youth and skill could muster.

Tendaji’s kick landed, hoof connecting with Nuru’s head in a knockout blow that actually made Raindrops nearly cringe from the sound of it. She sincerely hoped Tendaji hadn’t just killed the poor old guy, but trusted Tendaji knew what he was doing. Hopefully.

Nuru dropped from the air ungracefully, bouncing once or twice before coming to rest. Tendaji landed not far away, and instantly went to his father in law’s side, bending down to check on him. Raindrops landed as well, tentatively approaching, equally wary of Nuru still being conscious and ready to fight as she was of the uncomfortably possibility that she’d just helped kill the old zebra.

“Is he...?” she asked, and after a moment or two of checking Tendaji raised his head and looked at her with relief.

“He lives. I held back as much as I could, considering whom I was striking.”

“Thank goodness,” Raindrops heaved out a big sigh of relief herself, then sat down on her haunches and sucked in deep breaths, “And thank the Moon for that plan actually working! I was pretty sure we were getting our flanks kicked for a minute there!”

“We indeed were,” Tendaji agreed, slowly picking up Nuru and slinging the unconscious zebra onto his back, “Had he not been holding back for our sake, and been similarly distracted by your admittedly clever tactic, we’d have stood no chance.”

“Wait, you mean that entire few minutes of us being kicked around like rag dolls was him holding back?” Raindrops used a hoof to check to make sure none of her bones were broken, which she wouldn’t have been surprised to find considering how much she felt like a sandbag that’d been used as a practice target, “I’m going to go ahead and consider my luck for the rest of the year spent. Here’s hoping Corona decides to hold off on any invasion plans until then, because I don’t think I’ve got another near death experience in me until at least Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

“You Equestrians are a peculiar bunch,” Tendaji replied simply, but there was an unsteadiness in his light tone as he looked back at Nuru, laying limp upon his back. Raindrops saw the pained contemplation running across Tendaji’s eyes.

“Were you... tempted to go along with his plan?” she asked, “Even for a second, there?”

Tendaji didn’t immediately answer, quiet and contemplative as they returned to the elevator platform that would take them back the way they had come. Once upon it and the platform was moving, Tednaji answered. “If only for a second. What my father in law offered was a shortcut, and one I believe some might call me foolish, perhaps even prideful, not to take. Yet I have learned time and again that on our Paths we each are tested, repeatedly. I can only hope this was another test passed, but I will never know with certainty until I reach the end. And you, Raindrops, I thank. Without having met you, I doubt I’d be anything other than an unconscious heap hooked up to one of those unnatural pods right now.”

She took a deep breath, and offered Tendaji a genuine smile, “Think nothing of it. I think, much as dealing with you has sometimes utterly baffled me, I’ve come out of all this feeling more sure of myself and my own ‘path’, if that’s what you want to call it. There was a lot about the future I was worried about before coming to the Contest. Now, weird as it may seem considering we’re still neck deep in an ancient flying death fortress... I feel like whatever is coming for me and my friends, I’ll be able to help see them through it.”

To this Tendaji just provided a fairly rare smile of his own and nodded in acknowledgement, although as the platform reached the level they’d originated from, he mentioned, “I do hope your friends have fared well in their own battles. If not, we must find a way to bind my father quickly so we may go assist.”

“Won’t hear any argument from me on that count,” Raindrops said as she and Tendaji started a quick trot back down the corridors they had come from, hoping that if any of her friends did need help that she and Tendaji would make it in time.

----------

Trixie had made the unilateral decision that stairs were a menace and once she was in any kind of position of power in the Night Court she would be introducing legislation to ban the installing of any more than one hundred stairs in any given building. Fire escapes be damned. They could install slides or something. She’d heard rumors of some newfangled steam invention called an ‘escalator’, which she’d dismissed as pure fantasy hogwash, but at this juncture Trixie was planning to invest.

“Huff...how...much..mmmfff...longer can...uggggrrr...this cursed staircase...possibly last?”

She was a veritable pile of sweat and panting fur, and she was in no way about to concede that this had anything to do with anything other than the fact that the final apparent stretch between her and Rengoku’s command and control room was the world’s longest and most cruel flight of stairs. The stairs encircled the wall of the uppermost spire’s central shaft in one ongoing, seemingly endless corkscrew. The stairs were wide enough that near ten pony’s abreast could have galloped up them, but Trixie noted the distinct lack of safety rails along the side of the stairs and decided the ancient saurian race were just fundamentally screwed in the head to come up with this as a design. The only good thing was that long, vertical window openings along the inner wall let some breeze in, so Trixie’s profuse sweating was at least helping cool her off. Wasn’t doing much for the smell, but such was the price of heroics. Trixie had learned that being a hero was often sweaty, smelly, and generally unpleasant for all involved. Worth it, in so many ways, but she looked forward to the inevitable long bath once all of this was over and done with!

“I confess I find this unnecessarily long staircase to be an irritant as well,” admitted Dao Ming, who was much to Trixie’s chagrin, significantly less sweaty and having no apparent trouble breathing. “But it does appear to be nearing an end. Look.”

Trixie did, and saw that not much further above a sphere of metal hung down from the ceiling of Rengoku’s top spire, like some kind of metallic root bulb. Disturbing lines of violet energy coursed through the walls and the ceiling and went into that sphere, tracing over it in strange geometric patterns. The stairs continued up along the wall until they reached the same level as the sphere, then the stairs extended like a catwalk to what appeared to be some kind of open entryway. Given the sphere’s size, the chamber within had to be fairly large, around the size of Canterlot’s throne room, Trixie’s gauged.

“Thank the Moon,” she breathed, and composed herself, wiping sweat from her face and adjusting her hat before looking at Dao Ming, “Once we’re in do you want to take a prerequisite moment to give Tomoko a chance to surrender, or are we simply rushing in spells blazing?”

Dao Ming’s expression showed no hint of humor as she used her magic to meaningfully levitate the cervid blade she’d borrowed in lieu of her previously broken weapon. The broad cervid sword didn’t quite look right in Dao Ming’s grasp, but Trixie didn’t doubt the kirin mare could wield it with as much proficiency as any Shouma weapon.

“Tomoko would not have come this far were she not prepared to lose her life. She will not surrender, so there is no point in asking. When we face her, it will be to do battle. We’ve no reason not to seize the initiative.”

Despite her words, Trixie sensed the undercurrent of pain and hesitancy in Dao Ming’s voice, no matter how hard the kirin was trying to sound. Trixie didn’t necessarily blame her. If this had been one of her friends going rogue Trixie wasn’t so sure she could talk about any of them like an enemy with any level of conviction. She couldn’t fully imagine what Dao Ming must have been going through in that moment, but she did feel for the mare. Trixie was a lot of things, and sometimes being insensitive was among those things... but not this time. It was hard to convey comfort with a look, but she tried her best as she nodded to Dao Ming and said, “We’ll beat her, and if possible, take her alive. I’ll do everything I can to help.”

“I...” Dao Ming paused, then just faced forward and marched on, “Yes. Together, let us finish this, to whatever end.”

Upon crossing the threshold into the sphere shaped control center of Rengoku, Trixie noticed that at least the floor itself was flat metal, suggesting the lower half of the sphere was given over to whatever arcane machinery ran through the fortress. The rest of the chamber vibrated with the otherworldly energies that powered Rengoku, the walls so thick with conduits that it looked almost organic. Strange, cylindrical pillars rose in a wide circle around a central, pyramid shaped apparatus that pulsated with dark violet lights, itself formed of what looked like almost organic metal tubes that bunched together to form the tall mount. At the apex of the pyramid, which itself stood near twenty paces tall, was what Trixie could only think of as a black metal sarcophagus, slit down the center.

Awaiting them at the base of the pyramid was Abbess Serene. The aged mare looked upon them with calm, if tired eyes, and made no move to either attack or indicate an interest in running. Dao Ming’s eyes narrowed at the mare dangerously, but Trixie took the first step forward and, while she warmed up her horn with magic ready to cast, she figured she might as well try to act in an official capacity as both a knight and a Night Court Representative.

“Abbess Serene of the Order of Legends, I Dame Trixie, Knight of the Realm and duly appointed Representative of the Night Court of Princess Luna, do herby place you under arrest for... well, all of this!” she made a dramatic gesture at the fortress around her, then she cleared her throat and leveled her horn at the Abbess. “Are you going to come quietly?”

To Trixie's mild shock the Abbess merely nodded and approached slowly before sitting down on her haunches and saying, “I have no intention of fighting you personally, Dame Trixie, Lady Dao Ming. I am an old unicorn, with no skill in martial magic. The success or failure of my plan rests entirely on those I’ve entrusted to see it through. If you and yours win the day, I shall go to face judgment with neither regret nor intent to flee.”

“Well... that’s very reasonable of you, for an insane conspirator who’s put multiple realms in danger,” Trixie said bluntly, then Dao Ming moved to Serene’s side, eyes boiling with rancor.

“Tell me, former ‘Abbess’, what manner of madness did you infect Tomoko with to get her to go along with this?”

Serene’s eyes were as placid as her name as she gazed back into Dao Ming’s heated gaze. “It was not hard. The Order visited Shouma many times, and I on more than one occasion. I saw her chafing under Fu Ling, and the intensity of her love for you. From there, offering her a path to alleviate her troubles was a simple thing to do.”

“That is enough, Serene.”

A loud hiss of hydraulic steam issues forth from the sarcophagus, drawing Trixie and Dao Ming’s attention to it as the large metal obelisk opened along its seam. Trixie felt a stab of unease and a sickly cold feeling run down her neck as she saw Tomoko emerge from within, where she had been sitting upon a massive throne of cold steel. The kirin’s ruby fur was drenched with sweat, her black mane plastered across her face. There were twin snakes wrapped around her body, shimmering with ethereal spirit-light, one a bright blood red, the other shining white as pearl. Both rose and flicked tongues of flame from their mouths the same color as their scales. Black tubes ran from within the sarcophagus’ walls and bit into Tomoko’s flesh along her spine and sides, attached by dark metal claws, and pulsing of purple energy ran from the tubes and into her like heartbeats. Around her brow was a black circlet of metal that similarly glowed with an outline of purple energy, and her eyes glowed with the same light as she stood at the top of the pyramid, looking down upon them.

“If my sister has questions, I’ll answer them myself, assuming she wishes words before we draw blades.”

Serene nodded to Tomoko and stood aside, to which Trixie gave her a hard look.

“You know what? Old mare or not, I’d rather you take a nap for now until we get this sorted out,” she said, and tossed a quick dusting of sleeping magic from her horn and into Serene’s face. The mare almost looked... relieved to fall asleep, not even resisting as she slumped to the floor. Tomoko shook her head at the display.

“That was unnecessary. She had no intention of interfering in our fight.”

“Rather not take the chance,” Trixie replied simply, offering a somewhat cheeky smile, “Underestimating an elderly unicorn is a mistake too many make, in my experience.”

“Tomoko...” Dao Ming strode towards the pyramid, her sword at the ready, and several scrolls for spirit mantra already unfurling from the loose battle-ready dress she wore to float at her side. “I am not going to ask you to stand down. I merely want to know why? I still do not understand. I keep trying to think of what would make you do this, betraying the Empire, betraying our Empress.”

The spirit snakes around Tomoko gave viscous hisses and rose up in response to an ire that wrinkled Tomoko’s snout in distaste. “I do not view it as betrayal. No, my sister, this is me fulfilling my duty to my family, the Empire, and the only mare I shall ever acknowledge as being worthy of being Empress; you.”

“Me?” Dao Ming flattened her ears in puzzlement, blade lowering ever so slightly for a moment before swiftly rising again to point at Tomoko, “You speak nonsense. My mother is Empress. Even if she declares me heir, it will be years before-”

“The Empire does not have years!” Tomoko shouted, voice rising to a feverish pitch. She then let out a helpless laugh, taking a step down the pyramid. The tubes connected to her extended to follow as she moved further down the steps, looking at Dao Ming with a frazzled, exasperated smile. “You have been sheltered, Dao Ming. Kept endlessly training by your mother and Kenkuro. You do not know how many cracks there truly our in the Empire. Yes, you fought the Yellow Turban rebels, but did you ever wonder why they rebelled? Did it not occur to you how close their territory was to the Dark Lands?”

“I... yes, somewhat,” Dao Ming admitted, “I knew the farmers had low crop yields, and rising taxation rates from the noble families in the region resulted in dissent.”

“Dissent that spreads more than your mother would ever let you know, Dao Ming. Crops that fail because the Dark Lands’ corruption grows beyond its obvious borders. Oh it may take some time yet before it truly overruns even a fourth of the Empire’s current territory, but spread it will.” Tomoko was at the bottom of the pyramids’ steps now, but instead of walking along the floor the cables attached to her quivered and lifted her into the air, like a puppet on strings as she held her hooves out wide, “I know this because my family was long charged with combating the Dark Lands, even as it ate our territory into nothing! I was adopted into the Imperial Family as the last scion of a dead house, but I never forgot my duty. To end the Dark Lands and serve the Empire. And it has been agony for all these years seeing that self-absorbed bitch treat the Empire like a toy while treating her flesh and blood daughter like whipped dog!”

Dao Ming faced the acidic explosion of words with a clenched jaw and flashing eyes, but she let Tomoko rant, and when it was done she sucked in a deep, controlled breath and let it out slowly. “And you have stolen Rengoku from its imprisoned slumber to supposedly... heal the Dark Lands?”

“To cauterize the wound that Rengoku caused by it’s creation, which stole the very kami of the land and caused it to become the festering wound it is now,” Tomoko confirmed, voice growing more resolute with every word, “Destroying this fortress will release those same spirits, burn out the core of the corruption, and allow the land to begin to heal.”

“All while potentially unleashing enough energy to cause an entirely different natural catastrophe that could lead to the deaths of millions,” Dao Ming said, “A plan built on blind faith and desperation is not one to bet the lives of so many upon, Tomoko!”

“It will work,” Tomoko promised, “And one way or another, this incident will make it clear that the Empress is weak. If she does not abdicate now, she will be forced to sooner or later, and then you will take the throne as you are meant to.”

“What makes you think that I will?”

“Because you are you, Dao Ming. I know you. Have I not ever been by your side, as a supportive sister? I know that you will never turn your back on your people or your duty. When the Empress falls, you will rise in her place, for you will be compelled to fulfill the role. No other can do it as well as you can.”

Tomoko’s words were filled with an unrelenting faith and fervent hope that it surprised Trixie. This mare believed every single word she was saying as an absolute truth. There was no room for compromise. No room for surrendering. There was no talking this mare down. She was going to take Rengoku straight into Shouma, right into the Dark Lands, and blow it straight to Tartarus, likely with herself along with it, all because she had unbending belief that to do so would save her Empire and force Dao Ming into the role of Empress.

Dao Ming, for her part, briefly closed her eyes in a moment of pain before opening them, clear once again, “I do not know if I am the mare you believe me to be, Tomoko, but regardless you are right about one thing. I will never turn my back upon the people of Shouma, or my duty to the Empire. Which means...I must defeat you!”

“And with that, negotiations are over,” Trixie muttered as magical power poured of of both Dao Ming and Tomoko, the later flicking her hooves out and materializing slim, tanto-style blades.

Dao Ming flew at her sister in a straight gallop, chanting mantra under her breath that caused both of the scrolls in her magic grip to begin gleaming with elemental magic; one silver, the other fiery orange. From the silver scroll a ghostly tortoise appeared, Dao Ming’s words lending it a shining strength.

Guardian of the southern rivers, wisest of elders

Grant your mirror of inner depths to thy student

Protect us from all ignorance with reflected radiance

The ethereal silver turtle spun around her, leaving a mirror-sheen of reflective light that encased Dao Ming like a protective bubble, one that followed along with her movements as she leaped up into the air, bladed bared at Tomoko.

Tomoko’s body moved like an unnaturally swift puppet born on strings of wind, although the harsh cables in her body appeared to quiver like the spirit snakes wrapped around her torso. Kunai knives flickered out of nowhere in a carpet of stabbing blades, the kirin seemingly able to manifest the weapons from seemingly thin air. The small blades bounced off of Dao Ming’s protective shield, but in turn Dao Ming’s first swing of her sword went wide as Tomoko was taken upward by the cables, who then spun around and flashed down, striking with both tanto-blades in a cross slash that hammered Dao Ming’s shield from above.

Then the spirit snakes struck, red and pearl with flashing fangs that sunk into Dao Ming’s shield and started to sap its power, draining it so it flicked in a weak spurt.

Before the shield could vanish entirely, Dao Ming finished her other mantra chant, causing her second scroll to burst into flames and unleash a swarm of fluttering butterflies whose bodies and wings were made of raw flame. Tomoko jerked back, tantos slashing at the butterflies, cutting many in half, while her spirit snakes remained extended in order to continue draining Dao Ming’s shield.

As this had all been happening, Trixie, being Trixie, had opted to circle back and keep a distance from the fight. She wove invisibility around herself and carefully erased her audio cues as well as she slapped magic sight over her eyes to examine the chamber in more detail. She trusted Dao Ming to do the heavy lifting in keeping her mentally unstable death ninja sister busy for a bit while Trixie looked for a way to hamper Tomoko’s connection to Rengoku.

She almost immediately regretted opting to use her magic sight spell in this room, as her sight was flooded with a blinding array of various magical auras. The whole chamber was filled with throbbing rivers of power, all being directed to and from like the world’s largest series of fast water rapids, if all of it was glowing as bright as the sun. Making heads or tails of any of it was a difficult task, but Trixie’s intuition was potent and she quickly realized a few key factors, even at first glance.

One, Tomoko’s attention wasn’t entirely on the fight. Trixie saw conduits of magic running from that circlet on Tomoko’s head that went right into the throne, and then in turn spread out to the six cylinders built around the pyramid that the throne/sarcophagus was mounted upon. Clearly the mare was still busy having to control Rengoku’s various functions, most importantly operating the weapon systems to keep Corona and Luna at bay. Trixie guessed, based on the differing colors and configurations of magic in each of the cylinders that they were sub-systems meant to help direct different parts of the fortress.

Where’s Raindrops when you need her? I could definitely use my smashing mare right now, Trixie thought, not pausing to question the particular possessive use of mental wordage she’d used, as she was too busy trying to figure out how to not die in the next ten minutes or so.

Since she knew she didn’t have the strength or magical firepower to break those big sturdy cylinders, she figured she’d take a closer look at the throne. Perhaps she might yank a few of those cables out?

She took no more than three paces towards the throne before a strong female voice shouted at her, ”Look out! Kunai on your left, about to explode!”

“Huh?” Trixie looked down to her left, just in time to note that one of the many kunai knives that Tomoko had throne at Dao Ming were embedded in the floor next to her, and apparently reacting to Trixie’s proximity the kunai was now glowing an every brighter red and filling the air with an intense throbbing noise.

Trixie threw herself to the side just in time to avoid the kunai bursting into a ball of red flame, hot enough to burn some fur, but fortunately the warning had come fast enough to let Trixie avoid the worst of it. She landed with some grace and managed to pat the fire out from her tail. However her invisibility dropped, and she heard Tomoko laugh amid her duel with Dao Ming.

“Do watch your step, Dame Lulamoon. As a shinobi I know something about counter-stealth tactics.”

“Good for you!” Trixie shouted irritably, readying another spell to cloak herself once more, but paused as she wondered just who had given her that warning. Her eyes scanned about, but saw no other creature in the chamber.

Dao Ming was chasing Tomoko’s darting form, making prodigious leaps to try and cut off the other kirin’s path of retreat as she flipped through the air and swung down with her sword. Tomoko was all but a crimson shadow, the tubes buried into her flesh jerking about as she danced with fluid speed, her shorter tanto blades parrying Dao Ming’s sword in a song of screaming steel. In a flicker of hoof motion Tomoko cast out a set kunai that burst into flame mid-air, forcing Dao Ming to roll back away from them as the weapons impacted on the ground and exploded much like the one Trixie had stumbled near.

Then Tomoko demonstrated she had more than her shinobi skills to rely upon, as with another gesture the very floors and walls of the chamber started to shift and move. To Trixie’s surprise, smaller versions of the spear-like magical bolt launchers mounted outside the fortress now emerged from hatches along the walls. From the ground rose six metallic, jointed appendages that were tipped with pincer blades that sparked with arcs of purple energy.

Rapid expletives in Neigh Orleans flowed free from Trixie’s lips as she proceeded to make full use of her now extensive experience in the field of avoiding death as the chamber was filled with blasting bolts of violet energy from the wall mounted cannons. Her horn went into overdrive as she pulled what little magical stamina she had to spare up from within herself to weave illusions. Copies of Trixie started appearing in poofs of blue smoke and running every which way, thankfully confusing whatever targeting the wall cannons had.

Not that she still didn’t have to duck, dodge, and leap out of harm’s way a fair amount herself. The illusion copies could only do so much, and they started dropping swiftly under the assault. She felt more than one or two close calls, streaks of purple energy singing her fur from the near misses. She’d managed to work her way around to the other side of the chamber, and took partial cover behind one of the metal cylinders rising from the floor where she used a spare second to wave invisibility around herself again.

Dao Ming, at least, was faring comparatively well, at least for now. The energy bolts were mostly focused on Trixie’s illusions, so Dao Ming still just has Tomoko, and the newly summoned mechanical arms to deal with. The large pincer blades on the arms spun and crackled as the arms themselves extended unnaturally and kept bending at additional joints to rush in and stab at Dao Ming. She was able to move with expert grace and side step or flip away from many attacks, although she had to use her sword to block one that she just couldn’t dodge in time. The pincer blades snapped around Dao Ming’s cervid-forged broadsword and jolts of electricity rushed through the sword. Fortunately since Dao Ming was using her magic to wield it, she was still safe, but with her sword now caught, Tomoko rushed in from behind, leaping into a spinning dual blade strike at Dao Ming’s back.

However Trixie had perfect line of sight, and while she was no specialist in evocation, she had plenty of ways to make somepony have a bad day with illusions alone, even with her magical reserves low. A quick spell and she sent out a swift bead of light that flew right in front of Tomoko and burst in a flare of bright light. This blinded the shinobi, making her attack fall just short as Dao Ming, alerted to the attack, jumped aside and launched an unarmed kick at Tomoko’s side, which connected.

Tomoko fell back, but didn’t actually drop as the tubes connected to her lifted her upward and away from the blow. She shook her head and blinked her eyes clear and gave a dry chuckle. “Good as ever, Dao Ming. And I suppose I shouldn’t underestimate one of Equestria’s champions, even if she seems capable of little else than parlor tricks. I can’t afford to kill you Dao Ming, and wouldn’t even if I could, but honestly the Equestrian’s life is forfeit at this point. So I think I’ll stop holding back the wealth of Rengoku’s power now...”

Again, Trixie heard that voice from nearby. For a second she thought she saw a phantom of a ghostly kirin’s image appear above the central control throne, but it vanished just as fast, even as the voice lingered.

”She’s losing herself to the fortress, just as I did, bit by bit. You have to destroy the connections to the throne.

“How!?” Trixie whispered, trying not to give away her position. Even if she got up onto the throne itself, it wasn’t like she had a way to cut those tubes or yank them out. She wasn’t exactly Miss Physical Destruction.

”My descendant's power is enough, if she summons it fully once more. You faced it once, the summoning of Raijin. That spirit can overwhelm the throne, if not outright destroy it. You must buy my descendant an opening, blood of Equestria. There is no other way.”

As if Tomoko could hear the phantom words, she spun around and rose on quivering tubes to peer at the throne, then she laughed again, “You again, Ying Shen!? Can you not accept Rengoku is no longer yours to command? Cease your whispers, ghost, and leave this matter to the living to settle!”

Another gesture from Tomoko caused the throne and the entire pyramid shaped mass of quasi-organic metal tubes and pipes making up the pyramid to suddenly become wreathed in a swirling mass of raw purple energy that pulsated up from below. Trixie heard the voice of whom she assumed was the Warlord cry out in pain and fade away. What Tomoko had done was no clear, but it apparently had been a hefty rebuke against the Warlord’s spirit.

“There, that ought to keep her out of the command system for a time. Now then, back to our business.”

The same flowing pulses of violet colored power were moving through the tubes connecting Tomoko to the throne and entering her body, causing both her and the twin snake spirits attached to her to become enwrapped in auras of magic and to sport vines that gleamed brightly beneath the skin. The snake spirits grew longer and shot out like whips, targeting Trixie, despite her invisibility. Too late did Trixie realize these things, like real snakes, probably had some ability to sense heat from her body.

Reflexively she cast out a conical blast of prismatic colors from her horn, trying to confuse the snake spirits as they snapped glowing fangs at her. She ducked one, which snatched her precious magician's hat off of her head, while she felt the other brush just past her right hindleg in a near miss. However the snake that missed her leg, the red one, still reacted quickly and coiled around that very leg it missed, and before Trixie knew it she was being hauled into the air and hurled around like a toy figurine, thrown right towards the wall.

She felt an impact, but not against the wall. Dao Ming had jumped up to catch her, rolling in mid-air to take the brunt of the fall as she and Trixie landed. Both mares barely got to their hooves as Tomoko gestured to the mechanical pincer arms and arcs of purple lighting erupted upwards along their lengths. Then the arms stabbed into the ground and sent currents of that lightning charging through the floor at Dao Ming and Trixie!

One of the metal cylinders was nearby, and Trixie saw little option but to avoid the lightning arcs by diving behind it and hoping the cylinder would absorb the blow. Dao Ming appeared to have the same idea as she joined Trixie in her leap, while whipping out a scroll and chanting a swift mantra that Trixie didn’t catch the words of, especially given how fast Dao Ming belted it out. The moment she did, the kanji upon the scroll flew out in a circle around them and imprinted on the ground in bold, glowing yellow lettering. A pillar of stone emerged up from beneath them, raising them above the floor just as the lighting arcs struck the metal cylinder and curved around it.

Now Dao Ming and Trixie were on the same height as the top of the cylinder, and could see Tomoko as the mare extended her tanto blades to either side. The purple colored magic drawn from Rengoku that throbbed around Tomoko then entered the blades and grew sheathes of corrupt looking dark crystal, extending the weapons to the size of viscous looking katana. Her snake spirits hissed and shinobi rushed them with the speed of a hurricane, not giving either Trixie or Dao Ming a moment to breathe.

“Oh, screw this!” Trixie said, grabbing Dao Ming and sparking her horn with all the focus she could muster. She was running out of magical energy rather fast, and it was getting more and more clear Tomoko was drawing enough power from Rengoku that this wasn’t going to go her and Dao Ming’s way as long as they kept trying to fight her openly or wear her down via attrition.

Ying Shen, the Warlord, was probably right. They had to take that throne out, otherwise this was just not going to end well.

She hated teleporting. The damned spell was every which way of trouble for her. This time was no different, despite the fact that she was just hopping herself and Dao Ming to the other side of the chamber, to a spot Trixie had direct line of sight to. Even then, the scramble of her senses in that moment of mind popping translocation made her want to dry heave the second she and Dao Ming stumbled back into being on the complete opposite end of the room, just as Tomoko sliced apart the rock pillar she and Dao Ming had just been on.

“Dao Ming, need to use that big spell of yours. Fry the throne!” Trixie gasped between trying not to collapse from dizziness and nausea.

“I know,” growled the kirin, “I heard the Warlord too. But Tomoko is too swift. I don’t have time to make such a chant. I don’t even know if I can control Raijin.”

“Don’t need to control him! Just summon the damned spirit and point him at the throne!”

“I can hear you both, you know?” Tomoko said, wheeling abut on the pulsations of the tubes in her body, flying around like a crazed puppet on a crane as she came flying at them again, “And Dao Ming is right. I’ll not grant you time to summon anything as powerful as Raijin! Surrender while you still draw breath to do so!”

This time the wall mounted cannons joined in, sending out a burning barrage of shots that forced Trixie and Dao Ming to leap apart in opposite directions, both galloping away to stay ahead of the deadly bolts of energy raining down around them. Tomoko ignored Trixie and pursued Dao Ming, her snake spirits striking ahead of her to try and snatch the kirin’s limbs. Dao Ming jumped left and right, staying one step ahead of the snake’s venomous bites. She then used one of the other metal cylinders to leap up and spring off to come flying right back at Tomoko. At the same time she used her magical telekinesis, horns burning gold with arcane power, to yank the cervid blade still held by one of the pincer arms and send the weapon flying to her side.

She and Tomoko crossed paths in the air, cervid broad sword and corrupt dark crystal katana striking in gleaming arcs.

Dao Ming landed, but stumbled as a deep cut bloomed across her right shoulder and leg, blood staining the ground. Tomoko turned, not looking pleased at Dao Ming’s injury but resolved to continue the attack, but paused as she heard a snapping sound as the katana of crystal bound to her left hoof suddenly fell in half.

“Borrowing power from this place has made you feel strong, but your skills were never in battle, sister.” Dao Ming said, gritting her teeth past the pain of her sound and spinning about to face Tomoko, “Even if you wear me down, I’ll continue fighting until my last breath, and then where will your grand plans for my ascension to the Imperial throne be?”

Tomoko threw aside her broken blade and readjusted her grip on the single one. Unlike Dao Ming, Tomoko seemed focused on using her hooves over magic to control her weapon, which made it easier for her to control other things with her magic. This time she yanked the mechanical pincer arms out of the floor with raw force, her own horns burning red and purple with magic as she turned the six arms towards Dao Ming like floating spears.

“If I bleed you enough to pass out, the medical facilities in this fortress will keep you alive. Now cease grandstanding! I can tell you’re running out of breath and magic both, and that foppish Equestrian so-called ‘knight’ is practically dead on her hooves already! I’m winning, Dao Ming. For your sake, and the Empire’s, I will win!”

The pincer arms stabbed down like a bunch of hungry visitors at a pasta restaurant trying to fork up plates of noodles. Dao Ming ducked and bobbed between the strikes, and retaliated by sending her sword flying towards Tomoko. The mare parried several blows from the broadsword with her remaining crystal katana, still maintaining focus on the pincer arms she was controlling to try and box in Dao Ming with an attack that spun the six arms around and tried to use them like bludgeons in fast tandem.

Amidst it all, Tomoko had lost track of Trixie, assuming the wall cannons, which were still firing, were accounting for the unicorn.

Something of a tactical error, on her part.

Abruptly sound cut out in the entire chamber. This broke Tomoko’s concentration, the sudden and utter silence, and she was forced to back off of Dao Ming’s sword lest it impale her in a moment of confusion. Dao Ming, admittedly, was equally confused by the sudden lack of sound, but was faster than Tomoko on the uptake and quickly ducked back behind one of the metal cylinders to avoid the bludgeon pincer arms.

At the same time a thick fog suddenly billowed up from the ground and filled the chamber like smoke. Tomoko’s view of everything was entirely obscured, and she let out an annoyed “Tch!” at the realization that both the appearance of the fog and the mystical lack of noise had to have been Trixie’s doing.

“Childish. The same trick you used on Dao Ming at the Grand Melee won’t work on me.”

She was shinobi, and she had to admit to herself in the pulse pounding infusion of power from Rengoku’s magic and throne, she’d forgotten her basics. Perhaps she’d been too dismissive of Trixie Lulamoon, whose illusions were akin to the arts of shinobi. It was a brand of magic unlike the spirit mantra, with more closer application to the Equestrian unicorn’s school of illusion, but mixed with conjuring and transmutation.

She dismissed the dark crystal around her remaining tanto that had turned it into a katana, and held it in an inverted grip as she lit up her horns and proceeded to call forth shinobi magic. First it conjured kunai. The manner in which she could summon so many was not because she had so many hidden on her, but conjuration magic. In swift arcing throws she started filling the chamber floor with more kunai infused with explosive magic. Then she wove a combination of transmutation and conjuration around herself to blend in with the environment. It wasn’t invisibility, but rather a more active type of magical camouflage that let a shinobi become one with shadow, stone, wood, or even fog.

The tubes in her body couldn’t fully transmute, but Tomoko figured they blended well enough on their own. She lowered herself to the ground and began to stalk the chamber, attuning her senses to smell more than sight or sound, which Trixie had robbed from her. Trixie and Dao Ming could not hide forever, and any motion might trigger one of the explosive kunai. One way or another, this battle would soon be done!

She didn’t hear the kunai explode, but felt the pressure wave of it on her left. She turned and flung more kunai in that direction, seeing fog billow from their passage. Moving that direction, she found... a cape!? Trixie’s cape, torn to shreds by an exploded kunai, but no sign of the blasted pony!

There was motion behind her and Tomoko spun to face Dao Ming coming at her out of the fog. Blended as she was with the fog, Tomoko was still partially visible because of the tubes and the fact that her motions caused some small stirrings in the fog itself. Because Trixie had baited her over with the cape, Dao Ming had known where to go, and what to look for. Dao Ming’s sword came slicing down in a wreath of light blue magic, and Tomoko parried the blow quickly with her tanto.

On reflex Tomoko counter attacked, driving her tanto forward, and felt a moment of excitement at Dao Ming’s awkward parry! Her sister must finally have started to get tired and be worn down by the fight! Tomoko’s snake spirits struck next, one binding the cervid broad sword and yanking it to the side, while the other bit at Dao Ming’s legs, forcing her to jump back and nearly fall. Tomoko took advantage of the off balance Dao Ming, stabbing down with her tanto and impaling Dao Ming’s left foreleg. Even in the silence, she saw Dao Ming open her mouth in a shout of pain, and the blue magic faded from the broadsword that had still been struggling in the pearl snake spirit’s grip...

...wait a moment. Blue magic? Dao Ming’s magical field was golden, was it not?

In a puff of blue smoke, the illusion around “Dao Ming” faded, and Trixie Lulamoon was now in front of Tomoko. Her leg was still stabbed through by the tanto, but that hardly mattered to Tomoko. Where was Dao-

“-Ming!?”

Tomoko blinked in surprise at sound returned during her own unintentional shouting. The fog faded as well, Trixie no longer able to maintain that spell either as a result of both magical exhaustion and the overwhelming pain of having her foreleg so badly injured. Yet despite that the magician still had the temerity of mind to start scrambling away from Tomoko as best she could, biting back both tears and a cry of pain from the agony shooting up her stabbed limb.

Tomoko may have thought to attack the fleeing mare, but her attention was already being drawn elsewhere, back towards the entrance area of the control chamber. At that point, Dao Ming’s rising voice could be heard like a building echo of thunder, as she’d been performing the extensive spirit mantra chant to summon forth Raijin whilst Trixie had been providing a distraction for Tomoko.

The entire plan had been conceived and executed in a manner that would have only been possible due to the two mares reaching a level of trust in one another. Dao Ming had surmised the moment the room had gone silent and filled with fog that Trixie had a specific plan in mind, and had quickly sought her out, trusting it when she’d felt a magical tug of telekinesis direct her to a hidden spot behind one of the room’s metal cylinders. There, Trixie had left a small space open to sound where she had rapidly explained the bait and switch plan, to which Dao Ming immediately recognized as their best chance to win.

So it was that Trixie had taken Dao Ming’s form and went about drawing Tomoko’s attention, while Dao Ming got in position elsewhere to begin the long chant to bring forth the spirit that had the potential to end this battle.

Of course things could still go wrong. Even with Raijin’s chant nearly completed, there was the small matter of directing the incredible might of a spirit whose wrath and pride had nearly lain Dao Ming low during the Grand Melee. Even now as the last words of the mantra left her lips, Dao Ming could feel her whole body ablaze with the furious surge of storm-born power as the scroll she used for the chant evaporated into ash. Bolts of lightning hammered around her body and coursed over her jade fur and crackled through her golden mane, lighting her eyes up blue as Raijin’s spirit manifested. She felt his voice booming in her mind like a hundred mountainous drums.

”Be thee beyond foolish, mortal, to dare summon me twice!? Shall I render your body to charred flesh for this arrogance here and now, or take my time teaching you humility when calling upon forces beyond you?

The spirit’s anger boiled in Dao Ming’s blood and she could feel herself almost begin to cook from the inside out, but she bowed her head deeply, casting aside all pride to implore with all the conviction that had bloomed in her soul since the beginning of the Contest of Champions and the lessons of humility, duty, and indeed friendship that had been planted by her experiences. At that moment she truly did not even mind if the price was her life, Tomoko had to be stopped. Rengoku had to be stopped.

“Please, great Raijin, I know not what worth my life my have, but I’d give it freely to whatever punishment you deem fit, just so long as you look upon where we are and judge for yourself whether or not in this moment your wrath is worthy to be spent upon this battle! Burn me to cinders if you must, but I beg you, use me as a channel to bring forth your spear of heavenly might and cast down this unnatural fortress!”

Tomoko, knowing full well the power of the spirit that Dao Ming had summoned, rose up on the living tubes hooked to her body and flew up to the apex of the mechanical pyramid mound where the sarcophagus throne awaited. She stood before that throne and drew forth pulsations of dark, churning power from the whole of Rengoku. Streams of darkly purple energies poured through the room’s conduits and pipes, pooling into the throne and Tomoko as her own eyes lit up, the pearl and crimson spirit snakes around her similarly becoming pure incandescent violet as they filled with power.

“Do not test me, Dao Ming! To conquer Raijin himself, I’ll use as much power as Rengoku has to give, and I don’t know what will happen to you if I must do that!”

The lightning that coursed through Dao Ming sparked brighter and burst upwards, swirling around to begin taking a more distinct shape. In an earth shaking charge of electricity, a being of living storm took form. It looked as if one had taken a kirin and emphasized all of its draconic aspects to a primal level, stretching out the body in a serpentine manner, enlarged the horns to ludicrous levels, and given claws in place of hooves upon its majestic body. A long, thin mustache and crackling mane, all made of pure lighting, graced an otherwise half-equine, half-draconic face that sneered at Tomoko, or rather at Rengoku in sickened recognition.

His voice no longer in Dao Ming’s mind, Raijin’s roar boomed as the breaking of a hurricane. “I know this tainted construct! Lucky you are this day, mortal Dao Ming, for you’ve found the one thing that makes me more irate than even your former arrogance! It will bring me great pleasure to strike a blow to the heart of this tainted place, and as a reward I shall not smite you along with it for the act of summoning me. Heh, this idiot in front of me, however gets the rare honor of feeling but a taste of Raijin’s fury!”

Not entirely unlike what had occurred at the Grand Melee, Dao Ming herself had little to no control over what was happening. Her body was but a conduit through which one of the mightiest spirits of Shouma could channel forth his power upon the mortal plane. The only difference was that this time he was at least somewhat protecting her from the worst of the backlash as he brought forth his vast magic.

The primal kirin spirit of lightning reared up and raised a clawed hoof above him. Flashing bolts of lightning flew from across his back and tail and gathered in his hoof until they formed a gigantic naginata spear, it’s broad curved blade shaped like a dragon’s head, and the whole weapon forged of solid azure electricity.

At the same time, Tomoko, eyes wild with her own convictions and unwillingness to back down, set her horns ablaze with violet flames of the raw magic drawn from Rengoku. At her sides the two spirit snakes opened their fanged maws, from which pooled gathering spheres of Rengoku’s magic as well. The room howled with the clash of magical energies present, while Trixie threw herself into cover as far from the center of the show as she could, throwing up a small magical shield around herself with the last trickling bits of magic she had left.

The two unleashed their magic simultaneously. From Tomoko’s lowered horns and the mouths of her snake spirits, a wide beam of condensed energies of raw power and flame exploded forth in a tide of deathly purple light. From Raijin he cast forth his brilliant blue spear of divine lightning, which then transformed into an avalanche of flashing white and sapphire power akin to the collective bolts of a thousand storms. For a moment there was nothing that could be seen or heard over the sense wiping roar of sound and clashing of searing lights, rocking and shaking not only Rengoku’s control chamber, but much of the entire fortress.

Even outside the fortress, Princess Luna and Corona both paused in their long focused spells to hold Rengoku in place while still avoiding its aerial defenses. The weapons of Rengoku had gone silent as the whole fortress shook and surged with uneven arcs of power, and both alicorns sensed the immense magic flaring at the very top of the central tower.

Then they saw light surge out from one end in a rending flash of storm power as the trace ends of a massive lightning bolt blasted a hole through one side of the tower.

Inside the control chamber the air smelled of sulfur and ozone, traces of electricity faintly crackling here and there amid smoke and dust kicked up by the clash of the powerful magical attacks. Trixie coughed at the smoke, dispelling her shield, which thankfully held, and cradled her bleeding leg as she painfully got up and looked around.

“Um... Dao Ming? You alive?”

By now she could see that the center of the chamber had a long, blackened mark of partially melted metal from where the immense magical energies had clashed to the point of warping the floor and ceiling. That trail led right up to the pyramid of conduits where the sarcophagus-like throne had been. “Been” being the operative term. The top portion of the pyramid had been torn free and rendered into twisted pieces of metal that were scattered across the back half of the chamber, including the smoking, barely intact remains of Rengoku’s throne that sat smolder near the wall. A wall that had a large, roughly twenty pace wide hole blown clear through it... and presumably several more walls besides that, if the sunlight trickling through was any indication.

Trixie stared at that for a second. She saw no immediate sign of Tomoko anywhere. Had the kirin been unfortunate enough to just be entirely vaporized by the blast? Trixie gulped, recalling vividly at having had Raijin’s power pointed at herself and her friends during the Grand Melee. Hearing a sputtering cough from the vicinity of the chamber entrance, Trixie moved in that direction as quickly as her injuries would allow her. She saw Dao Ming slowly rising from having collapsed after the summoning of Raijin. A few traces of electrical energy still played in the air and sparked upon Dao Ming’s sweat soaked body.

Upon seeing Trixie, the kirin’s eyes briefly lit up, despite the clear exhaustion in them. “I see you survived, Dame Lulamoon.”

“I think we’re at just the ‘Trixie’ stage at this point, Dao Ming,” Trixie said, biting back a yelp of pain as the wound in her leg throbbed. Dao Ming’s eyes softened.

“I am sorry you had to play the decoy, Trixie. I would never have been able to finish the mantra to summon Raijin had Tomoko been able to focus upon finding me.”

“Oh, trust me, I know. Aaaaah, just, really wish I’d had enough spell energy left to at least hit myself with a pain numbing spell. Not that I know one, but believe me, I’m going to go learn one ASAP.”

Dao Ming tried to muster a smile, but it faded fast as her eyes fixed upon the ruined throne and she began a slow trot around the room, eyes searching. “Have you seen Tomoko? I... Raijin was beyond any ability I had to control, let alone hold back. This was the full measure of his power. She...”

Trixie couldn’t really imagine what might be going through Dao Ming’s mind, understanding fully that the situation had been more than a tad complicated and far from starkly black and white enough for Dao Ming to feel nothing over the prospect of having just killed her sister. Even if things had been black and white, with Tomoko being nothing more than a cackling nut case after something silly like world domination, Trixie wouldn’t expect Dao Ming to feel happy at this moment. Trixie wasn’t exactly thrilled over that outcome either, but compared to the alternatives of being killed herself, or letting Rengoku’s detonation potentially kill millions, well... Trixie could live with it, and if she had a bad night or two over the matter she had friends and alcohol to ease her mood and conscience with.

Her own ruminations over things, however, were soon interrupted as Dao Ming went around the other side of the partially destroyed pyramid and let out a gasp, quickly rushing out of sight. Trixie blinked, and with a pained roll of her eyes she began to hobble in the same direction, still cradling her leg.

“Yup, pain numbing spell, possibly also healing magic. Screw teleportation, medical spells are where it’s at. Owowow, why does being stabbed have to hurt so much? Oh wow, this is really a lot of blood. Am I supposed to be bleeding this much? Whew... my head is getting light, too. Not a great sign. Dao Ming, I don’t suppose you know any healing spells...oh.”

Around the corner, hidden from Trixie’s previous view of the room, Tomoko lay at the bottom of the opposite side of the pyramid. Guessing from the angle of the hole in the wall, Trixie guessed Tomoko had fallen back behind the pyramid just as her own beam of Rengoku’s magic had been overwhelmed by Rainjin’s lightning. She’d still clearly taken at least a partial blow from the passing wave of electricity, but not enough to outright destroy her body, as Trixie had initially feared.

The kirin shinobi still looked like she’d hugged a thunderstorm. One of her horns was shattered entirely, the left one, and that side of her body showed enough burn marks that even if healed she was never going to precisely be a ‘looker’ ever again. The cables and tubes that had kept her attached to the throne were torn free from her flesh and left in smoking pieces on the ground nearby. The spirit snakes that she had summoned lay in charred forms around her, their forms gradually dissipating into motes of light as Dao Ming knelt down next to Tomoko. Dao Ming checked Tomoko’s breathing, confirming the faint rise and fall of the other mare’s chest.

“She’s alive. Barely. I will need to summon a spirit of water to stabilize her. But how did she survive?”

”That was my doing.”

Both Dao Ming and Trixie looked up at the disembodied voice. Floating in the air, just above the ruined pyramid, was the ghostly blue form of the Warlord. Shen gazed down upon them with her the hood of the robes that had hidden her body now fully drawn back to reveal a kirin mare who had such a strong resemblance to Dao Ming it was a tad uncanny, if not for the fact that Shen’s features were now incredibly aged, as if her very skin was a translucent thing barely clinging to her phantom bones.

“Warlord...” Dao Ming breathed, then shook her head and bowed in apology, “No, Ying Shen. My ancestor. We owe you many thanks for your aid this day. Were it not for you, we could not have gained victory over my sister.”

Ying Shen’s smile was as faded as her ghostly form, her single breath of a laugh one of long wished for relief more than anything else.

”Thank me? You, who are descended from my blood, and you who are kin to my daughter’s closest friend? No, I owe both of you gratitude I can never truly express. Twelve hundred years my soul has dwelt here, tormented by my mistakes, unable to do anything but watch the world turn. Because of you, I finally was able to do something, however small, to atone for my grievous errors. To stop this fortress from corrupting another as it did me.”

“So you saved Tomoko? But how?” Trixie asked, “I thought you had no real power here, other than some minor control over a few of Rengoku’s systems.”

"Indeed, young Lulamoon. But even that small control was enough, especially when Tomoko was directing all of her focus on trying to overcome Raijin’s might. A foolish act, as she should have known that Rengoku can only project so much power through a newly minted Warlord. Had it been I, during the height of my own folly, I may well have won. My daughter and her friends defeated me by severing my connection to the throne, which is exactly what I did to Tomoko when she was distracted. I took control over the connection cables and yanked her off the pyramid just in time. Then I disconnected her from the system the moment the throne was destroyed. Tomoko is free, and even if she dies, her soul will not be claimed by the fortress as mine was. She has not been connected to the fortress long enough for that, or for its influence to warp her mind even further.”

“Was it doing that already, even for such a short time spent connected to this cursed thing?” Dao Ming asked. “Could it do that even before she was connected?”

Ying Shen’s features took on a sympathetic cast, her voice gentle. ”The corruption would not have begun until she was in the throne, so her actions prior to that remained her own, my descendant. Yet the longer she stayed connected to Rengoku, the worse her mental state would become. I know from experience. I had no desire for world conquest when I first raised Rengoku. My only interest back then had been to unify Shouma. But Rengoku is a hungry beast, and desires to be used. Tomoko, for all of her and Abbess Serene’s noble goals, would have fallen in time to the fortress’ influence. By the time they would have arrived in the Dark Lands to destroy Rengoku, the fortress likely would have convinced Tomoko that its power would be better spent elsewhere... in conquest. That is the way of it. Why this fortress can never be used by any creature. One day it must be destroyed, but only by one who can do so without succumbing to it. That day is not today.”

Her spirit moved like a churning mist towards the remains of the pyramid that the throne had been mounted atop, sinking into the structure slowly. ”Even this damage Rengoku will recover from. It is nearly a living thing, rebuilding itself over time. With Tomoko no longer in command of the fortress, I can briefly wrest greater control and return Rengoku to the Isle of the Fallen.”

“So, it’s over then,” Trixie said, nearly collapsing then and there. She couldn’t even begin to guess at just how much sleep she was going to need to get over this set of events. Then her tired mind struck her with a thought, “Wait, my friends, do you know if they’re alright? They were in the middle of dealing with Tomoko’s crazy co-conspirators last I saw them.”

The phantom Warlord showed a bare smile as she nodded towards the entrance of the chamber. ”You may see for yourself, for they come swiftly, now that their own battles are ended.”

Trixie turned to see the relieving sight of her five friends charging into the room as if each was ready to throw themselves into another fight, despite each one looking nearly as exhausted and injured as she was.

“Trixie! We’re here to... help?” Raindrops’ declaration started strong, then trailed off to a faintly surprised end as she took note of the devastated chamber, an unconscious Tomoko and Serene, with Trixie standing beside Dao Ming. “Huh, you know a part of me feels like I shouldn’t be surprised at this.”

Cheerilee stifled a snicker and said, “Oh come on, you were freaking out the entire run up here.” She briefly mimicked Raindrop’s voice, “C’mon everypony, gallop faster, we have to save Trixie!”

“Okay first of all, I don’t sound anywhere near that gruff. Second, of course I was worried! No offense, Trixie, but a part of me felt sure that you and Dao Ming trying to take Tomoko alone was crazy... wait, oh crap, you’re leg!”

Trixie blanched as Raindrops was at her side in moments, fussing in worried flutters of her wings at Trixie’s leg injury. Which Trixie didn’t mind so much because it did hurt like crazy. “I-I’m fine. Well, not fine at all, I’m in quite a bit of agony, actually, but I don’t believe I’ll be bleeding out. Um, medical attention would not go unappreciated.”

“On it,” Carrot Top said as she trotted in with the rest of the mares, Ditzy pausing to glance between Serene and Tomoko.

“Should we be tying them up?”

“Did you happen to bring rope?” asked Cheerilee, and Ditzy blinked, then shook her head, to which Cheerilee added, “Then best we can do is drag them down to where we left Nuru with Frederick and Gwendolyn and hope these jerks stay in la-la land until we can get off this hulking deathtrap.”

Trixie was about to as Ying Shen how fast she could get Rengoku on the ground, by the Warlord’s spirit had already vanished. She wasn’t even sure if her friends had been capable of seeing the phantom for whatever brief moment she had been there. However, Trixie did feel a shift in Rengoku, a subtle change in the vibration of the floor. Ditzy and Raindrops, both pegasi, sensed even more as they looked at each other.

“I think the fortress is moving again,” Ditzy said, “But not out to sea anymore.”

“Yeah, feels like it’s heading back towards the island,” Raindrops confirmed.

“My ancestor’s spirit has regained some minor control of the fortress once more,” Dao Ming said, using soft and gentle magic to levitate Tomoko’s body and place her sister upon her back, “Ying Shen returns Rengoku to its resting place upon the Isle of the Fallen.”

Carrot Top glanced up from where she was taking her time inspecting Trixie’s leg injury and preparing bandages and salve from her bag of alchemist supplies to administer some basic first aid, “Can we trust her not to pull some kind of last second ‘inevitable betrayal’ crap on us?”

Dao Ming’s look was clear as glass but solid as stone, “We can trust her. Rengoku no longer holds her mind, even if it continues to be the prison of her spirit. Rest assured, knights of Equestria, we have won the day. It...” quite suddenly the young kirin looked ten times more drained than any of them, the weight of it all finally pressing in fully as she looked back at her defeated sister upon her back. “...it’s over.”

Those words proved true. There was some small discussion here and there, but by and large the tired and battered heroines slowly rejoined Frederick and Gwendolyn in the chambers below. Trixie's injured leg slowed her, but Carrot Top had done well in cleaning and dressing the wound, not to mention administering an anesthetic salve that reduced the severe pain to a slightly less severe ache that Trixie could manage grit her teeth through as she walked, with Raindrops' help to lean on. Once the whole group was together, the captured conspirators were as bound tightly as possible with Gwendolyn sacrificing some of her tunic to act as cloth straps, although few imagined that would hold the likes of Nuru or a trained shinobi like Tomoko for long, if they awoke before better restraints were prepared.

“Can’t believe that psycho Grimwald got away,” Raindrops grumbled as the group made its slow, injured procession down the last corridor towards the place they’d first entered the fortress interior from. They knew nothing about what the state of affairs outside were. Had the golem-like monsters created by Rengoku be rendered inert upon Tomoko’s defeat? What of the other champions?

“I can,” Ditzy said, laughing lightheartedly, “And he saved Andrea.”

“Yeah, great, good on him, sure that means he’s totally turned over a new leaf,” Raindrops said, not hiding the layer of sarcasm coating her voice, but Ditzy just kept smiling.

“Hey, I’m glad enough for it,” Lyra said, her own mood picking up, despite the leaden weariness dragging her hooves, “Not like those two will be able to do anything without Tomoko to run the show.”

“Either way, Andrea will forever remain a criminal and outcast in Elkheim from henceforth,” Frederick said, his own tone showing he took no pleasure from the fact, “If she does show her face in her homeland again, she can’t expect a warm reception.”

“As for Grimwald, I doubt he’ll be surfacing again anytime soon,” Gwendolyn said, “Slippery bastard always did have a habit of vanishing for long periods of time, even when we were still friends. Like Andrea, he’s going to be labeled a criminal back home, assuming home doesn’t erupt into war in the next couple of months. At the very least he’ll probably end up with a price on his head, not that I imagine he’d care. Sky’s blood, bastard will probably enjoy having bounty hunters coming after him.”

“Tendaji, you holding up okay back there?” Raindrops asked, looking over her shoulder back towards the zebra, who was carrying Nuru on his back. Tendaji’s eyes met hers unblinkingly, his voice still as an undisturbed pool.

“I am well enough. My father in law remains out, which is well. I do not look forward to discussing what will be done with him with Aisha or your Princess.”

“Yeah, we’ve got ourselves some interesting international overlap here,” Cheerilee noted, “No doubt they’re all criminals that could be, at the very least, charged with endangering lives, attempted murder, abduction, terrorism, conspiracy, treason, I could make a list longer than my tail. Question is who gets who?”

“Tomoko will be tried in the Empire,” Dao Ming said flatly in a voice that suggested she would accept no other result, “Her actions are an Imperial matter and will be dealt with accordingly.”

“A sentiment I share for my father in law,” Tendaji explained, “I will request to be allowed to take him back home to be tried under tribal law.”

“Hm, well I can’t say for sure how Princess Luna will respond to that, but at the very least I can promise I’ll give her my recommendation to allow it,” Trixie said, her mind so clogged with the siren call of needing a million years of sleep that she couldn’t really recall what laws applied in situations like this. “We’re in international waters, with the island being a neutral territory. But with all the national dignitaries here, there’s all sorts of potential for nasty jurisdictional tangles. Easiest fix is just to let each individual nation deal with its own and call it a day. I know I’m ready to do just that.”

“Hear hear,” Lyra said, wistfully looking ahead, “As soon as I see Bon Bon I’m going to curl up with her into a snoring pile of coma for the next week.”

“I second that,” Ditzy said, “Only I’m curling up with my Dinky for a looong nap.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Raindrops reminded them, “Still have to see what’s going on outside, clean up any possible remaining threats, oh and deal with freakin’ Corona, who might cause problems now that the big scary fortress is dealt with.”

“Nooooooo,” Ditzy said, “Stop reminding us of things and stuff, Raindrops. I wanna sleep!”

“Didn’t you get enough sleep from Grimwald’s freaky fae dagger?” asked Cheerilee and Ditzy shook her head.

“Doesn’t count. That thing gave me weird dreams.”

“Well whatever awaits us, we’re about to find out,” Trixie said, noting that up ahead light from outside filtered through the large doors they’d entered. They were still too far away to make out what lay beyond, but they’d be at the threshold in just a minute. A part of her dreaded every step, wondering what they might find. They had left the remaining champions locked in desperate battle against a veritable horde of deadly constructs, and things had looked a bit grim when Trixie and her allies had marched into Rengoku’s depths. She steeled herself for the worst as they finally trotted through the very same entrance they’d used to enter the fortress. What greeted her was a shout so loud and booming that she nearly leaped out of her own fur.

“The conquering champions return victorious! As I told you they would, dour Sigurd! Bwhahaha!”

Wodan’s voice was even louder in the confines of the short tunnel between fortress entrance and ramparts than it would have normally otherwise been, a practical peal of thunder in Trixie’s ears to match the shaking floor as the vast moose bounded their way. She stared at him, for he was a grotesque collection of such injury that it was scarcely possible to tell where rune carved flesh began and bleeding wound ended. Yet despite being coated in his own blood like an overly enthusiastic foal helping paint a barn, Wodan grinned upon them and stomped one of his mighty hooves in jubilation as he looked to Frederick.

“My Prince! Glad I am to see you and your fair mare alive and well! Does the fortress lay conquered?”

Beside Wodan, the far more subdued Sigurd approached, sporting no less injury than the moose warrior, yet still standing firm as his eyes traversed the group. The water deer’s gaze rested upon Ditzy Doo, and there was a visible draining of tension from him, and a phantom smile upon his lips as he looked sidelong at Wodan. “A foolish question. Had they not succeded I suspect we’d still lay neck deep in unnatural beasts of metal.”

Indeed, Trixie saw that a practical wall of shattered golem pieces was strewn in front of the archway that the champions who had remained behind had formed a defensive line around. Trixie couldn’t even begin to count how many golems must have been destroyed in what was likely a truly vicious and grueling melee. Yet despite all of the broken golems, she saw many and more that simply lay dormant, as if they had become mere puppets with their strings cut. No doubt when Tomoko had been defeated, or soon after when the Warlord had regained control of Rengoku, the golems still intact had ceased functioning.

As Trixie looked, she also took stock of the other champions. Siwatu and his deadly scorpion Sifu were resting against one another by the edge of the wall, the scorpion’s great stinger almost broken, and the zebra himself cradling a foreleg that was twisted at a poor angle. Steel Cage’s bare chest was marred by dozens of claw marks, his face bearing a distinctive cut across his muzzle that was likely to turn into an incredible scar. He carried the arms of a draconic golem in each hand like giant bludgeons, and the flattened remains of several golems in front of him spoke of the minotaur’s bloody prowess. His two fellow minotaur champions lay wounded not far off, their injuries being tended to by a conspicuously uninjured Gray Sight who used bandages of cloth torn from her own robes. Similarly numerous griffins were having their own injuries being looked after by their fellow countrybirds, the collection of griffin champions all sporting various degrees of injury, but not a one of them lacking new scars to boast of.

“Kenkuro?” Dao Ming asked, looking for the tengu, and Trixie noted the bird was nowhere to be seen. At least until he detached from where he’d been perched watching from the rampart wall just above their level and flew down in a smooth, dark glide.

The tengu bowed deeply to Dao Ming. He was ruffled, bearing a few cuts and scrapes, but otherwise was largely unharmed. His eyes swam with worry like disturbed pools and he noted the unconscious form of Tomoko tied to Dao Ming’s back.

“My lady, my heart’s clouds part to see you alive and well,” he said, a father’s pride in his voice even as he tried to maintain decorum, “I knew you could do it, Dao Ming.”

“Yes,” Dao Ming said, a sticking in her voice belying her own attempt to hold back her emotions as she smiled at Kenkuro, although the smile didn’t last long as she looked back upon Tomoko, “Would that it hadn’t come to battle, but she would not relent.”

There was a great deal of weight behind Kenkuro’s small nod, “Tien Zhu once said ‘None is fiercer than the heart that believes itself just’. I could have told you there would be no talking her down. Glad I am, regardless, that you captured her alive. To stain one’s blade with the blood of family is no light burden to bear.”

Dao Ming gave her own solemn nod at that, and then Kenkuro turned to Tendaji, the tengu's dark eyes alighting upon the still form of Nuru. A brief sadness shadowed Kenkuro, but his tone was light as he bowed to Tendaji, "I must commend you, young Tendaji. To have defeated one such as Nuru is not a small deed."

Tendaji's expression was as glass, both still yet transparent to the fact that within him there was still great pain over his father in law's actions, but he returned Kenkuro's bow. "A deed only achieved through Nuru's own self-doubt, and the fact that I did not face him alone, but with a strong and noble soul who shared my Path."

Raindrops coughed, looking vaguely embarrassed as Kenkuro bowed to her as well, showing his respect.

It was then that Cadenza appeared, looking as haggard and exhausted as the alicorn had ever appeared, but uninjured despite it all. Trixie noted that Shining Armor remained where she’d last seen him, although his grievous wound was now closed and she could tell he was breathing, if still unconscious himself. The ruler of Cavalia gave the entire group as quick once over, her eyes relieved, but also shrewd. “I’m glad you all made it out alive. I also note you have three of the five conspirators captured. What of the other two?”

“Indeed, I see neither our poor fool of a skald with you nor that feathered fiend, Grimwald,” Wodan said, the moose’s face adopting a grave glance towards Frederick, “Were they slain in battle?”

“Nay,” said Frederick, turning to bow his head to Lyra, then to Ditzy Doo, “It was a magnificent battle, by all accounts, led by these fine mares. Yet despite them emerging victors, Grimwald managed to give us all the slip, and in so doing also spirited away Andrea. Where they are now, I cannot say, but likely already far from here.”

Sigurd snorted, ignoring the blood that dribbled down his snout, “Andrea will find her name cursed in every corner of Elkheim before long. She’d do well not to show her face in our lands, lest she face the wrath of Elkheim justice.”

Wodan didn’t look all that pleased, but gave a grim sigh of his own, “Aye, that shall be the way of it. Would that I could understand the madness that took her upon this foul and foolish course.”

At that Lyra spoke up, “I think I... understood her, if just slightly. I’ll tell you all the tale, once we’re off this cursed floating deathtrap.”

“And a fine huzzah to that!” Wodan shouted with a grin, spirits returned.

Cadenza, still appearing pensive, gestured for all of them to join her further out on the ramparts. To Trixie and her friends she said, “A mess of this scale is going to take some time to wind down and work out just what must be done, but all of you have earned rest and accolades ten times over. Still, I must ask, why is the fortress still moving, if Tomoko no longer sits upon its throne?”

“You can thank Ying Shen for that,” Dao Ming said, to Cadenza’s somewhat bewildered look. The kirin elaborated, explaining the spirit of the Warlord’s condition, and that she had gained just enough control of Rengoku in Tomoko’s absence to move the flying citadel back to the Isle of the Fallen. Indeed Trixie could look over the rampart walls and see that the island was closing in, Rengoku moving to make a slow but steady landing back in it’s resting place upon the island’s northern shoreline.

She felt her legs give out from under her, the utter exhaustion of it all finally hitting her like a literal building falling upon her back. A strong, warm wing caught her and held her up, and she saw Raindrops at her left side, smiling gently.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

At the pegasus’ words, Trixie gulped and nodded, “Thanks. Um, yup, I’m good now. Just feeling... woozy.”

On her other side the rest of her dear friends stood, gazing over the ramparts as well to watch Rengoku finish it’s landing, while the many other champions that had had both fought against during the Contest and fought alongside to bring this crisis to an end all gathered to gaze out over the island where so much had occurred.

“It’s really over, isn't it?” said Ditzy Doo, half collapsing herself at this point, “We did it.”

“Chalk this one up as another win to go into the songbooks,” said Lyra, “Going to need a few weeks, or months for that matter, to digest it all before I start penning any ballads to go with this.”

“And, no offense to any of the excellent company we’ve met during this whole fiasco, but I am so ready to go home and get back to my farm.” said Carrot Top, although the way her eyes glanced towards a certain elk prince suggested there was a small bit of regret in her words as well.

“Well let’s not make any profound closing statements just yet, girls,” said Cheerilee, looking up into the sky rather than down at the island, “The fighting might be over, but there’s still a lot to be sorted out before we get to pass out in our own beds.”

Trixie looked up as well to where Cheerilee’s gaze had gone, and spotted what the schoolteacher had. Two alicorns, rapidly descending side by side towards where Rengoku was about to land. Trixie gulped, finding it utterly strange to see Luna and Corona flying side by side, and more than a tad wondering just how things were to play out now that indeed the battle was over.

What of the Contest of Champions? Did the conclusion of that competition even matter in light of this incident? And what was to become of the perpetrators they had captured? Indeed, with their very Abbess being revealed as the ringleader of the whole affair, what was to happen to the Order of Legends? And Rengoku itself? Could the barrier that once sealed it away be restored?

Many questions, and Trixie found that, at least for this moment, she could not have cared less of a whit about them. She just let herself relax, and unconsciously leaned into Raindrops, and closed her eyes, if only for a moment. It was a moment long enough for the thoroughly drained unicorn to fall asleep on her hooves, not even waking when Rengoku touched down once more upon the island that was to remain its final resting place.

Author's Note:

Hard to believe it's been over a year since the last update, but at last we're here, near the end of it all. With this chapter written there only remains the epilogue, which will wind everything down and wrap things up with all of the characters and last plot threads. But the battles are over, and with any luck the epilogue itself won't take nearly as wrong to write as this rather sizeable chapter took. I do hope all of you folks enjoyed it, and look forward to the ending in full, which again hopefully won't be taking me a whole year to do.

Comments

[DreadedCandiru2]

Well, real life does have a habit of intruding.

[RainbowDoubleDash]

Batteries, perhaps? Trixie couldn’t begin to fathom just what strange arcane techniques had gone into Rengoku’s construction, and given its spirit devouring nature, she was just as glad not to ponder it too much.

I'm getting a bit of a Phyrexian vibe to the place myself.

As the pegasus flew to join Tendaji in following Nuru away, the stage lowered

Wonder who lowered the stage. Maybe Tomoko's sparing a bit of attention for the drama?

Trixie couldn’t deny Cheerilee’s suggestion made sense

But then she remembered that she was an illusionist and so just left behind some hallucinations for the two to fight while her and her friends rushed Tomoko!

Nah, that wouldn't be dramatic enough.

and let the instinctual sense of the air currents

For the record, when I think of what Ditzy's like in a fight, my mind always goes to this video:

And the way Ditzy moves when she shows up towards the end, able to kind of just reorient herself in the air almost on a whim.

Mad as her sister was she couldn’t truly bring herself to believe that Celestia would willingly take advantage of the situation to try and eliminate Trixie and her friends by trying to destroy Rengoku while they were still inside it.

The consistent virtue I give Corona is integrity. Her word, when given, is iron, and she is never the one to initiate a betrayal or take advantage of a moment of weakness when there's more important stuff going on. Once a situation is resolved, then Corona might turn on her former ally, but she'll always do so honestly and openly while plainly stating her intentions. Corona does not stab in the back, and more to the point, it wouldn't even occur to her to try.

“No,” Ditzy said, shuddering slightly, “It really wouldn’t.”

I really don't think it would be, either, at least not to someone who likes watching fighting as a form of art. Grimwald likes to watch "fun" battles, but the two sisters know each other too well, so fights between them are nasty and brutish and pretty much lack technique because any attempt to use some kind of recognizable fighting style would be more of a weakness than a strength since it would be advertising their intentions. It's all about sudden, overwhelming blows with each one trying to be a finisher, rather than trying to weaken or expose the target. They fight the way bears fight.

She hadn’t expected him to just disarm himself like that

Well, "disarm" in the sense of no longer having an artificial weapon, but five of his six ends are still pointy.

Ah, as well as a flash bomb. Always have a flash bomb.

“Cervid warriors like explosive finishes to their ballads, Lyra,” Andrea said, “I’ve long since woven runes into my attire to keep from injuring myself, although my poor fiddle wasn’t so lucky.”

Or as Xykon once put it:
"Still Meteor Swarm. Incidentally, here's a pro tip for you: if you're going to use area effect spells, craft yourself a magic item that makes you immune to that type of damage."

Then, lacking any other immediate means of offense, Lyra relied on something rather blunt and unlike a bard. Her hooves.

Raindrop's preferred weapon, but also Trixie's! There's something ironic about the fact that in a combat situation, all of Trixie's fancy illusions are basically just meant to distract so that she can sucker-buck her target.

A griffin!? Wait... she recognized those feather colors. Grimwald!?

A griffin assassin. A deer skald. Together, they fight crime! By committing more crimes.

If worse came to worst she could replace it, or maybe ask Princess Luna for a little help in retrieving it from the bottom of the sea, but that would have to wait.

Far below, Princess Skystar stuck her head out of the ocean, looking up at the battle happening above her. To the seapony, it was amazing and terrifying and horrifying and beautiful all at once, and -

"Ow!"

And then she was bonked on the head by a falling lyre.

"Rude! Fine! The seaponies won't help out, then!" She grabbed the lyre "I'm keeping this!" And she dove back beneath the waves.

But... There's something else here. Something he values, and can’t move or dodge at all.

Love this. Came up in Dr. Stone, too. Fun anime.

War is based in deception, after all, and martial arts is just war on an individual scale.

And in mid-air there was no way for Nuru, master of martial arts or not, to adjust his course.

See this is why you should be born with a set of wings if you can help it.

Trixie had made the unilateral decision that stairs were a menace and once she was in any kind of position of power in the Night Court she would be introducing legislation to ban the installing of any more than one hundred stairs in any given building.

Trixie: "And don't get me started on wheels!"

the walls so thick with conduits that it looked almost organic.

Again, Phyrexian vibes. Or Gieger. Though the former draws a lot of inspiration from the latter. Just less, ah, phallic, on average.

“Do watch your step, Dame Lulamoon. As a shinobi I know something about counter-stealth tactics.”

All clans have their shinobi, of course, but it's interesting to me that it seems like Tomoko is most like a Scorpion - the clan noted for loyalty above honor - yet their role in the Empire was more analagous to the Crab, defending it against the encroaching Shadowlands.

You must buy my descendant an opening, blood of Equestria.

Buying time is the first thing Trixie ever did in the Lunaverse! She boguht time for the Twilight to transport the Ursa Minor away. This is her specialty!

“Do not test me, Dao Ming! To conquer Raijin himself, I’ll use as much power as Rengoku has to give, and I don’t know what will happen to you if I must do that!”

And also worst comes to worst Lo Shang or Xhua are still available, if not preferable.

“A sentiment I share for my father in law,” Tendaji explained

"As in, trying him can be an Imperial matter. I really don't want to have to deal with it...wait, Aisha would kill me. Dammit, nevermind, I have to keep him."

She just let herself relax, and unconsciously leaned into Raindrops, and closed her eyes, if only for a moment.

Now imagine if my coin flip had gone the other way for In the Heat of the Moment and I'd decided on shipping Trixie and Twilight instead...but no, TrixieDrops is the best ship. If I can ever drag my lazy fingers across a keyboard again and start writing regularly, I'd love to see where this goes in Season 3.

[Eurvos Morgenbrise]

11359393
Didn't you write her as aro in addition to ace?

[RainbowDoubleDash]

11360232
No, I view Trixie as asexual - to the point of being squicked out by it - but not aromantic. I did, however, write Tempest Shadow in A Day in Canterlot as aro/ace (though unlike Trixie I don’t think Tempest is squicked out by the idea of sex, she just personally has no interest in it).

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

“W-what are you doing !?” Nuru shouted, his calm finally broken.

"Milking an ostrich."
ICR who under similar circumstances.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

[i”]Indeed, young Lulamoon. But even that....."

Typo

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

It's been awhile but I vaguely recall it being mentioned that they won the contest?

If so, they were either awarded by acclaim or the contest resumed & they won magic.

[notme]

I like this concept of Ditzy. Part Daredevil, part Captain America. And now, with that dagger... part Shadowcat maybe?

[notme]

11359393

A griffin assassin. A deer skald. Together, they fight crime! By committing more crimes.

If you can fight fire with fire...

[Madmadmad123]

IT RETURNS