Episode 113: Army of the Queen
Episode 113: Army of the Queen
Six years ago...
A sharp crash and the sound of her little sister crying drew Rarity rapidly up from the kitchen where she’d been preparing breakfast to rush up the stairs to her room. Within she found a mess as her makeup cabinet had fallen from its place on the mirror stand, spilling its contents all over the floor. Sweetie Belle was laying there, holding her foot, which the cabinet had struck, and was bawling her eyes out. That crying rapidly turned to a look of shock and embarrassed fear the little girl realized her big sister had caught her rummaging about in Rarity’s room, likely to pilfer some makeup.
“Sweetie Belle! My word, are you alright?” Rarity said, her first priority was her sister’s well being before she concerned herself with Sweetie Belle sneaking into her room, again. She immediately went to the child’s side and knelt down, “Let me see it.”
“I-I’m sorry Rarity,” Sweetie Belle said between the sobs only a child can make when they hurt themselves, think they’re in big trouble, or a combination of both.
“Hmm, well nothing appears to be broken,” Rarity said, giving her sister’s foot a careful examination once she got the sock off, “A little bruise, which should serve as a reminder to come ask if there’s something you’d like from my room next time. What were you rummaging around in here for, anyway?”
Getting herself under control and apparently realizing her sister wasn’t about to chew her out, Sweetie Belle pointed at a black tube of lipstick on the floor amid the other things that had spilled out, “I liked the black stuff you used for Halloween. I wanted some. You looked really cool as a vampire.”
Rarity couldn’t help but laugh. She’d forgotten she’d even kept the makeup leftover from last Halloween. And of course her sister had the kind of fixation kids got on the little things. Being careful to give Sweetie Belle’s foot one last check before picking the girl up, Rarity said, “Well if you behave yourself until mother and father return from their trip, I’ll let you have it, does that sound good? Now come on downstairs, I nearly had breakfast ready.”
Her sobs tapering out to a relaxed sigh, Sweetie Belle hugged Rarity around the neck as the two headed downstairs, “You’re the best sister. You always look after me, even when mom and dad are gone.”
Not quite stopping a pleased smile, Rarity patted her sister’s head, “Of course. I’ll always be here to keep an eye on you.”
“Promise?” the child asked with the simple, pure trust held by the very young.
“Promise,” Rarity replied, never even hesitating to consider whether or not that word would ever be put to the test. It was just her nature to hold nothing back when giving to those she cared about. Whether it was looking after her little sister while her parents were away, or keeping the house in order even when her parents were around, or putting everything she had into one of her art projects, it was all part of the same desire; to give.
Maybe that was why, that day, things had happened the way they had.
Maybe that was why, when the doorbell had rang, just after Sweetie Belle had sat down to eat a stack of pancakes at the table, that Rarity had gone to answer it without thinking to check the peephole. She couldn’t have imagined the man outside with the knife. A robber, there to ransack a home he’d been casing for weeks and knew the parents were out.
Rarity remembered very little of what followed with any clarity, only instants of sensory information. The gruff feeling of the man’s hand covering her mouth. Sweetie Belle’s shrill scream. The cold shine of the knife reflecting the ceiling light. And the fear. Paralyzing, numbing fear. Then a flash of overwhelming anger when the man made to grab at Sweetie Belle.
There wasn’t any decision or thought to what came next. Rarity just found herself acting. Biting the man’s hand through a dirty glove. Clawing at his face, drawing scratches of blood that coated his wild eyes. The flash of the knife as it came at her. A desperate grasp with both her hands on his wrist, struggling to keep the blade away from her or Sweetie Belle. Then the fall, tripping over something that had been knocked over in the kitchen. After that... an all encompassing silence that somehow deafened out Sweetie Belle screaming and Rarity’s own labored breathing as she saw the knife in the man’s stomach, blood flowing onto their parent’s white and black checkered kitchen floor. Red over linoleum.
A neighbor, thankfully, had heard the screams and called the police. An ambulance had arrived not long after. Miraculously the robber hadn’t died, which certainly made the following legalities easier. Justified self defense. Her parents had been so... shaken, by it all, even more than Rarity had. It was strange, in the following months she herself just ended up putting the whole incident behind her. Not forgotten, but simply filed away, clinically. While everyone around her had talked about how traumatizing the whole thing must have been, and she’d spent some mandatory time with a therapist, Rarity had never felt... disturbed by the event. Her parents hadn’t taken another vacation away from home again.
Rarity wasn’t even sure if Sweetie Belle remembered the “incident”. They never talked about it. Not that Rarity had wanted to. She still couldn’t understand her own feelings on the matter. And for the longest time she simply didn’t think about it. Until...
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Her body was so cold she felt as if she’d been submerged in a river during the depths of winter. Rarity could barely move her arm, and even when she did it didn’t fully obey her will, raising only slightly from the pool of blood surrounding her rapidly dying body.
She should have already been dead, with the wound that Sapphire Shores had dealt her through the back, but the blood in Rarity’s body was part of her Fullbring, and continued to stubbornly flow through her damaged heart, keeping her conscious well beyond the point a normal human would have perished.
But even so, she was weakening by the second. In front of her she saw Hoity Toity’s feet, the crisp dark leather of his military style boots touching the edge of the blood seeping from her.
“Hurry up and get it done with,” said Sapphire’s voice, somehow sounding distant.
“I shall, but you’d best continue on towards our target,” Hoity Toity replied, “I can handle matters here.”
“...Very well, but do not tarry. This isn’t a game we play, and there is no room for any further mistakes.”
Rarity heard a noise like a burst of wind, and Sapphire’s Shore’s presence was gone, for what little of it there’d been in the first place. Whatever method the woman was using, it masked her spiritual pressure exceedingly well. Rarity tried to raise her head, but barely managed to turn it slightly to the left, so her eye could look up at Hoity Toity’s blurred form above her. Her vision was fading quickly, making it hard to discern her surroundings, but she could still see him raise his unusually shaped bow towards her and heard him speak.
“I truly am regretful it has come to this,” he said, “You are a rare beauty. Truly aptly named. Talent like yours is far from common, and you would have gone far, had you simply known... different friends. Alas, no point in shedding tears over ‘what might have beens’. I do hope you take some comfort in knowing your death will not be meaningless. I shall ensure your family is well taken care of, and I do not mean that with any innuendo. I’ll see to their financial benefit. It wont’ replace you, but take it as the only consolation I can offer you.”
She saw the brilliant glow of a reishi arrow being drawn by his bow. He was about to finish her off, not that simply waiting another minute or two wouldn’t have the same result, she mused coldly to herself. She tried to summon a weapon from the blood around her, or control any aspect of her Fullbring, but her body was so weak that her spirit energy had also weakened. For a living body like a human’s, spirit energy was tied to physical health, so being at the brink of death dimmed it the same way a candle flame might gutter out without oxygen to keep it bright.
Yet the thought of dying didn’t simply frighten Rarity. Oh, it still did, but there was a rising tide of other emotions that rose within her as she stared down the arrow that was about to end her life.
There was regret for the knowledge of what her being gone would do to her parents and little sister. It wasn’t hard to imagine their anguish. Her parents wouldn’t even know why she was dead, unless Sunset or someone else told them the truth, and how would they even process such a thing? And what of Sweetie Belle? The poor dear had just discovered power of her own, and was going to get involved in this whole mess as well.
How long before Sweetie Belle met the same fate?
That was why the regret came packaged with a combination of self-disgust and bitter anger. Because some part of her had been holding back this entire time. Or rather, ever since her battle with Captain Blueblood. She hated to admit it, but after that fight, when she realized how capable she would have been of killing Blueblood if it had come to that, Rarity had been hampering herself in battle. Because she was frightened of herself. Scared of what she might start doing, to protect her friends and family, and even more scared of how they might look at her if she went that far in keeping them safe.
Would they judge her, if she killed for them? Would she judge herself, every time she looked in a mirror? For the longest time she’d put aside the incident with the robber that had invaded her home. She hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone back then, either, but she’d acted on instinct. An instinct she’d been holding back for the majority of her life.
But what good had holding back done her? If she’d been utterly focused on the goal of killing Hoity Toity, she could have won before Sapphire Shores had shown up. There was nothing wrong with avoiding taking lives. She believed that, and knew her friends believed it too. Yet she was different from them in regards to where the line was drawn, and if push came to shove, as it was right now, then Rarity was willing to stain herself with blood if that’s what was required.
Instead of running away from that ugly truth, she wanted to embrace it, face forward, without regret. If she could do that, then she could make the choice actively, within the moment. She wouldn’t be chained to instinct or fear.
From now on, if she took a life, it’d only be because she chose to, and accept all of the consequences that choice entailed.
Upon that realization, she felt something inside her stir. At first a warmth that beat back the numbing cold, but it soon grew into a dangerous, sweltering heat that filled her body and felt as if it was fit to peel away her skin and explode right out of her. Which was rather uncomfortably close to the truth as she realized what was happening, her spiritual energy spilling from her as the final emotional component of her Fullbring fell into place.
Hoity Toity glanced over the edge of his sunglasses as Rarity’s body, graying to an ashen color from loss of blood, suddenly glowed with a scintillating crimson light. The Sternritter felt the abrupt, volcanic surge of reiatsu from the girl, and on instinct he jumped back, sensing the danger. This reiatsu was not under control, whatever it was, and his jumping back was the only thing that kept him clear as Rarity’s spirit energy literally exploded out of her body.
Painfully bright and ruby colored energy decimated everything around Rarity in a dome-like storm that soon shot upwards into the sky. Hoity Toity composed himself from his shock and went up as well, leaping skyward with Hirenkyaku.
The swirling vortex of red energy began to pulse like a heartbeat, then flowed outward to either side and started to take a solid shape. Hoity Toity looked on in cautious wonderment as what formed in the air was a massive and opulent gate. It was reminiscent of the gateway into a fabulous palace, with the doors intricately carved with twin giant roses, and a wealth of ivy and thorn vines wrapped around the sides. The gate was suspended in the air as if on solid ground, wide enough that an army could march through it and tall enough a giant could pass under its top.
“Perhaps I should have had Sapphire Shores stick around,” Hoity said to himself, half jokingly. He wasn’t quite worried yet, but he wasn’t certain what to expect from this either. The information the Quincy had available on Fullbring was enough to tell him that Rarity had, at the very brink of death, just completed hers. How she’d survived the explosion of Hollow reiatsu that stemmed from such a completion without someone else present to control it he did not know, but that was hardly his main concern right now.
He was confused by the reiatsu he was feeling from the towering red gate, even as he was taken by it’s phantasmal splendor, as if he was gazing at an artifact that did not belong in this world. The spiritual pressure had a fragmented quality to it, as if there was more than one source present. Before Hoity Toity could try to piece together what that might mean, a line of shining rose light spilled forth down the center of the gate as it’s twin doors began to swing open. Rays of otherworldly light shone out in all hues of red, some so pale as to appear almost like white rays. Fluttering from within the sheet of crimson color within the gate came what at first looked like flecks of blood, but Hoity soon realized were rose petals.
Then the plane of pure red within the gate rippled like water, and Rarity emerged from within.
Hoity Toity found himself momentarily at a loss for words, for the person he was gazing upon was undoubtedly the girl known as Rarity, the term ‘girl’ failed to encapsulate what was before him. All of the ‘components’ of Rarity could be seen, if every portion had been remodeled to remove youthful awkwardness and replaced it with the maturity of not merely a woman in her prime, but with the very essence of noble purpose and mature authority.
Of course that aside, what most starkly stood out was the color white. Her hair had turned a silvery white hue that caught the sun like a shard of diamond. She was clad in a similar battle dress as before, yet with its cloth a snow white color that glittered as if made from fine threads of crystal rather than silk. Armored portions fit perfectly to her shoulders, arms, legs, and chest, shining as if forged from a precise melding of diamond and silver. Her eyes remained the same deep hue of blue, but now gazed out with the assurance of someone with full confidence in their path and purpose. Only a single splash of red remained on Rarity’s ensemble, and that was the red rose bracelet upon her left forearm.
That aside, Hoity Toity took particular notice of the fact that the wound that had been in her chest was gone, which caused him to frown in puzzlement. Even if this was Rarity’s completed Fullbring, it shouldn’t have erased her wound. In fact, without another to contain the explosion of uncontrolled reiatsu, the girl should have been even more damaged, not left with her porcelain skin without so much as a blemish upon it.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Rarity held up her hand, holding up one finger in a silencing gesture, and strangely enough, Hoity found himself going silent. Not out of any mysterious new power Rarity had, but rather simply because she exuded such presence that he found himself obeying without thinking. Which was grating for the Sternritter, for only His Majesty had ever commanded that level of charisma.
“Before you speak,” Rarity said, in a voice that was still her own, yet somehow filled with a crystal clarity of a newfound maturity, “Know that I’m only going to grant you one chance to save your own life and remove yourself from my presence. I will not tolerate threats to that which I hold precious, so I will be going now to stop Sapphire Shores. Remain in my path, and you will be cut down, good sir.”
Hoity Toity locked his gaze with hers. Whatever new powers Rarity had managed to obtain, however she was standing before him unharmed when moment’s earlier she was at death’s door, regardless of her apparently overfull well of confidence, he was not about to cower before her. He was still a Sternritter of His Majesty, even if at the moment he was forced to work in a clandestine manner to protect His Majesty's best interests even without him knowing it.
He took aim with his bow, adjusting his sunglasses upon his nose, “My apologies, Miss Rarity, but I must decline your mercy. Just as you have what you must protect, so too do I. While I congratulate you on obtaining the full maturity of your powers, and am in awe of the beauty I see before me, do not think you can defeat a Sternritter of the Quincy by your lonesome. As queenly as you appear, you cannot possess such hubris.”
In response Rarity swept her right arm out to her side, and from her palm a stream of blood ran, contrasting sharply with the white of her skin, dress, and armor. A blade formed there, a long and wide rapier with a blood red core, but a shining white edge, it’s length covered in intricate ivy inlays that then entwined to form a rose pattern at the hilt. Rarity then grasped this finely crafted construct in her hand, and pointed it towards Hoity Toity.
“What you say may be true, if my intention was to fight alone,” she said, and Hoity tilted his head slightly upon hearing a rhythmic, pounding sound. At first he wasn’t sure what it was, but as it grew louder he realized it was the sound of many heavy feet on the march. Rarity’s visage grew a grim smile, “But what is a queen without her army?”
The field of red from within the gate rippled once more, and from it’s ruby depths marched forth a procession of knights. Rank upon rank of knightly armor, redder than fresh blood, stepped in unison out from the gates. Their armor was each fashioned like a work of art, showing prominent carvings of mythic animals upon chest and shoulders, or the ever present rose motif. Each suit of armor was fully helmeted, and Hoity Toity suspected nothing of flesh existed within these suits, but rather every single knight was an intricately forged construct of Rarity’s own making. The knight’s bore a vast array of weapons, ranging from a front rank of glittering ruby lances, to lines of swords and shields, axes, halberds, flails, and even a back line of bowmen with tall, radiant crystal bows. And it wasn’t over. As the first line of what Hoity suspected was at least a hundred knights had emerged, a second squadron marched forth. These knights rolled out an array of ornate and massive cannons, twenty in total, crewed by four knights apiece. Yet still it wasn’t done. Finally came a squadron of mounted knights, riding atop winged horses, pegasi, whose armor, wings, and very bodies were forged from crimson crystal. These mounted knights carried unique weapons, more specialized swords such as claymores, sabers, or rapiers. One had a strange double bladed axe, while another carried a scythe, while another bore a two handed war hammer. Hoity Toity sensed that while the regular knights were more disposable combat constructs, this squadron of twenty had more power invested in them.
The mounted knights flew to the front of the small but impressive army, and one of them, a knight carrying twin longswords over his shoulders, brought forth a riderless pegasus construct whose armor was more ornate than the rest and who was as starkly white as it’s intended rider was. Rarity swung up and mounted the horse as if she’d done it her whole lifetime, now truly at the head of her army.
Hoity Toity could only gaze upon it with a brief sense of envy. The army was as much an expression of Rarity’s soul as it was a weapon, elegant yet lethal. He admired what he saw before him, even as he resolved himself to destroy it, and the girl who stood to disrupt him and his co-conspirators plans to protect His Majesty from the poisonous Twilight Sparkle.
“It seems I misspoke,” he admitted, “It is not hubris that drives you. Accept my apologies, my lady. I acknowledge I may well lose my life to you, but be that as it may, stand here in your path I must, for the sake of His Majesty.”
He pulled off the glove of his left hand, exposing the black Sanrei Glove beneath and its gleaming Quincy cross, “And so, I will do all in my power to end your life first.”
And in a flash of white light that rivaled Rarity’s new raiment, Hoity Toity brought forth his Vollstandig. The shining pillar reached into the sky and blossomed with the five pointed Quincy cross. Rarity watched it astride her pegasus construct, flanked by her knights on either side. She did not need to gesture to give them commands. They obeyed her will and thoughts with instant precision.
While Hoity Toity was transforming, Rarity’s army spread out into a wide, fan shaped formation, with the cannoneers and bow knights rising upward to form a tight semi-circle. Much like the weapons Rarity could create before, and still could of course, her knights had a full three dimensional range of movement and could fly in any direction with ease. Each one was a conduit for her spirit energy, amplified to a much greater degree than what she’d been capable of before with the whirlpool.
Before the pillar Hoity Toity had created with activating Volstandig had even faded, Rarity swept her sword forward and although verbal commands weren’t a necessity, she felt a distinct sense of satisfaction in saying, “Court of the Generous Rose; attack!”
The beginning of the battle was heralded by a thunderous expulsion of cannonfire. Each crystal cannon could form ammunition internally, powered by the four knights that carried the weapons aloft. At Rarity’s mental direction the cannons were firing large spikes of piercing crystal that were charged with spirit energy to explode upon contact. Hoity Toity’s position was covered in a series of such detonations, shrapnel of crimson crystal flying from fiery blasts of blood red energy. This was followed by a barrage of arrows from the bow knights, who could form their arrows from their own bodies with such ease that they could fire without pause.
Rarity could feel a certain eagerness from her knights. Though constructs just like the weapons she had made in the past, the completion of her Fullbring brought a certain force of her own personality into the constructs. These knights would fight as she directed without question, but if cut off from her somehow, or forced to act without her active knowledge, they were fully capable of independent action as long as they didn’t stray more than a kilometer from her position. As the cannons and archers went to work she could tell the rest of the knights, especially her squadron of twenty mounted knights, wanted to charge in, but they held back at her mental command.
This was just the beginning, and she was testing Hoity Toity. She was not going to do this foolishly. As powerful as she felt right now, underestimating her opponent would be a mistake.
Her caution proved warranted as the arrows raining down around Hoity Toity’s position all abruptly halted along the same vertical plane of air, as if the air had become harder than steel.
“It’s rare I get arrows fired at me,” Hoity Toity said as he stepped forth from the vanishing pillar of light, “Your knights have immaculate aim, Queen of Roses. I take it ‘Court of the Generous Rose’ is the true name of your Fullbring? I apologize that I have no name to give you for my Vollstandig. Only His Majesty’s elites have Vollstandig that are named.”
His body was still the same shape, but was contorted in such a manner that it didn’t appear that any of his bones or joints were locked together properly, with his arms and legs twisted and bent at odd poses that should have been impossible. His chest was now bare save for a set of glowing bands of light that encircled his shoulders and chest down to his midriff. Long gloves of the same white light went up to his elbows, with miniature halos hovering over the backs of his hands. His legs were wrapped in similar bands of light as his chest, albeity with an actual long, cloth covering for his waist that hung nearly down to his feet. Long, pointed boots covered his feet, with similar small halos at the soles of the boots as the ones hovering over his hands. Hoity Toity’s face was graced with a set of sunglasses that had wide, chrome lenses, and a frame of glowing white light. The halo above his head consisted of three layered rings, each at a slightly different tilt from the other. Finally, four “wings” appeared from his back, shaped like thin, almost glass-like transparent planes that were triangular in shape.
“That said, I do hope to provide a worthy challenge to you.”
He raised both hands, and the halos hovering there began to visibly spin until they grew to several feet in circumference, tilting over to surround his wrists. In a swirling pattern a flurry of reishi arrows fired out of both rings, darting out in numerous different directions. The bolts passed through holes that opened up in the solid barrier of air he’d created, coming down upon Rarity’s knights in a glittering rain.
In response Rarity wasted not even a split second, the knights in the front ranks instantly raising their left arms. Just as her whirlpool could create weapons, so too could her knights, and the front line of knights formed tower shields of ornate crimson crystal to absorb the first barrage from Hoity Toity, reishi arrows deflecting off of spiritually hardened crystal.
Pointing her sword forward, Rarity signaled her constructs to charge, the pegasus beneath her spreading its wings as she and her squadron of mounted knights flew forward. The speed at which she and the other mounted knights could move took even Rarity a little off guard as they soared up at an angle to get over the barrier of hardened air Hoity Toity had created. At the same time she mentally ordered the other knights to spread out and start fanning around the barrier, keeping their shields up as Hoity Toity continued to blast arrows towards them.
The cannons and bow knights continued to fire, hammering the plane of hardened air. Rarity wanted to test just how strong Hoity Toity’s Xenomorph Schrift could make a substance.
The wind tearing past her, Rarity got above the lip of the barrier, but just as she and her knights soared over it, Hoity Toity turned his arms up towards them and his wings began to vibrate. The air filled with a strange distortion, and Rarity and her knights instantly split into two groups, flying so fast out of the path that they all but visibly vanished. Hoity Toity seemed to have no trouble following their movements, however, and the distortion in the air chased the group Rarity was in.
The distortion was coming at them too quickly for even their enhanced speed to escape from, so rarity sent five of the mounted knights back to block it. A substance akin to blood, the same as her old whirlpool, flowed from between the joints of the knights’ armor and shot in front of them, forming into a set of giant, round shields. The distortion struck the shields first, and Rarity paid careful attention as the shields were cracked, then shattered. Immediately she directed the five knights she’d sent back to split up, each flying in a different direction, and they did so just in time to avoid the distortion as it kept on coming.
Rarity wasn’t completely certain what Hoity Toity’s ability was, but everything she’d seen so far suggested he was altering the physical properties of matter around him or within himself. The hardened barrier of ari was one example, and this distortion was another, wherein the air had become sharpened like a field of blades turning the air itself into essentially a mobile blender.
She hadn’t lost her concentration on the wider battle, even as this blender of air started to catch up with her. She directed more and more of her mounted knights to peel off from her, seemingly sending them away at random, but instead she was just preparing them to attack Hoity Toity directly while he seemed focused on chasing her with the distortion. Meanwhile the rest of her regular knights had started to flank the barrier that the cannons and bow knights were still hammering. Hoity wasn't ignoring them, however, and seemed more than capable of firing more streams of arrows from the halos around his wrists at Rarity’s advancing forces. Rarity noted two things about that. One, he wasn’t expanding the barrier of hardened air at all, keeping it between him and the cannons even as Rarity had the cannons shift positions. Second, while some of her regular knights were being struck by his reishi arrows, the front rank of shields were holding firm.
The damage he was inflicting seemed minimal, but just as the knights were preparing to charge in from the sides, she understood Hoity Toity had let them get that close. The barrages of arrows he’d fired had in many cases remained stuck in the shields or armor of the knights struck, and now Rarity sensed his reiatsu expand through those arrows. In a flash dozens of knights were transmuted from crystal into statues of stone, Rarity’s reiatsu inside them abruptly cut off.
She narrowed her eyes, but didn’t lose an instant of focus. She still had the distortion of cutting air chasing her, after all. Swinging her pegasus around, she stood on the back of the construct as it charged back at the distortion, an action that seemed to take Hoity Toity off guard as she sensed a moment of hesitation in his spiritual pressure. She smiled thinly as she flipped off the back of her pegasus construct, and with her power caused the construct to change shape into a multi-layered set of diamond shaped shields. As the distortion struck them, she recalled how she’d seen Sunset Shimmer use her own reiatsu to push back against Hoity Toity’s when he’d hit her own shield with an arrow in the previous encounter. Rarity did the same now, focusing her reiatsu through her construct to distort the flows of Hoity Toity’s own spirit energy.
The distortion of air still cracked her first shield, but it couldn’t alter course or break through, and unraveled like tattered threads a moment later.
Now, Rarity dove down at Hoity Toity, and the other mounted knight’s she’d sent to scatter before, she now called back to charge the Sternritter from multiple directions.
He didn’t shift the barrier of hardened air to defend himself or try to block any part of their charge, but instead she saw him smile as he moved his body in what could only be described as a contortionist’s dance. His arms and legs bent and moved at strange angles as he suddenly leaped to meet the charge of Rarity and her mounted knights. The halos at the bottom of his feet also grew in size to match the ones around his wrists, and within the next moment he was sending a dizzying array of “arrows” at them. These arrows weren’t regularly shaped, but rather they looked more like spinning crosses, and as they came at her and her knights she saw the small air distortions stemming from them.
With reflexes far in excess of what she was used to using, but somehow now felt natural, Rarity wove between the arrows, and her knights did likewise. Mostly. One or two of them were caught by the distorted arrows, and she saw each arrow burst and change into piercing fields of sharpened air. While several of her knights were thus impaled, it didn’t stop her or the rest of them from reaching Hoity Toity. At that point a flashing brawl ensued as Rarity struck first, her crystalline rapier thrusting forward in a ruby blur. Other knights made flew-by attacks, the wings of their pegasi constructs forming into blades that complimented the assorted weapons they struck with.
Hoity Toity bent his body in ways that defied biology, arms and legs not only twisting at impossible angles, but his torso contorting and shifting like a snake made out of putty. The halos around his wrists and feet proved adept physical weapons as he parried and blocked the storm of slashes surrounding him, the edge of the halos vibrating at high speed and acting as cutting tools. Rarity felt her arm jostle at several parries, but she was stronger now and pressed in harder with her own attack, her now white hair falling like a sheet of snow around her face as she created a second crystal rapier and drove in hard to break Hoity Toity’s unusual defenses.
Despite his extremely effective guard, the simple fact that he was this outnumbered, with not only Rarity but a cluster of knights zipping back and forth at high speed to attack him with dozens of different weapons with varied reach and weights put even his impressive parrying ability to the test. Even contorting every which way possible, his halos couldn’t stop every attack, and he took several sharp cuts across his body that started to spatter Rarity’s white armor and dress red.
However she also saw that as fast as she and her knights could wound him, the wounds would start to close back up. Apparently his power allowed him to alter his own body not just to change appearance, but to heal wounds rapidly. In Rarity’s mind this changed little. It just confirmed to her that if she wanted to end this, she’d need a killing blow that couldn’t be so swiftly healed.
And Hoity Toity wasn’t giving her enough of an opening to do that, especially when he started to combine his parries with lashing distortions of air that alternated between more cutting blenders, and sudden hardening like the one that had caught her before. Several of her knights were either stuck fast in fields of hardened air, or had chunks of them torn away by the merciless distortions, yet Rarity wasn’t concerned. Hoity Toity wasn’t the only one who could easily recover. As her constructs were damaged, Rarity only needed a fraction of focus to repair them, oozing fresh blood-like substance to fill in broken gaps. More so, the knight’s she’d lost to the stone transmutation were being replaced as more marched forth from her still open gateway. While she could only field a certain maximum number of knights at any given time, as long as her reiatsu held out she could keep replacing them.
Hoity Toity must have realized that, because he gave her gate a sharp look, and with a gesture the huge, hardened barrier of air began to move towards her gate. He must have been intending to block the gate with the hardened air. Clever, but Rarity knew it was futile. The moment the air barrier got close to her gate, she shut the gateway, and the entire thing turned into a gigantic whirlpool of blood, much larger than her previous one, and it swirled around the barrier with liquid grace and reshaped back into a gate.
An annoyed grunt came from Hoity Toity then, “I really should have guessed.”
“Yes, but a good try,” she replied, and struck fast with a blinding crimson streak of stabs at his throat. He caught them with one of his wrist halos, but Rarity had more surprises for him. Blood, combined with a gleam of liquid white energy, flowed from the rose on Rarity’s left wrist, and an encircling field of sparkling crystal daggers surrounded Hoity Toity and stabbed inward.
He just barely managed to form a shell of hard air around himself to block the daggers, and Rarity noted that his previous barrier had vanished. He must have needed to drop that one to create this second one.
“Ah, so you can still make weapons. I thought your new power focused on these knights of yours?”
“I don’t recall saying the knights replaced my weapons,” Rarity said, taking her two rapiers and sweeping them in front of her as she formed a fan of identical rapiers that floated in front of her, “A queen needs both her army, and her armory. One does not replace the other. They compliment each other.”
The rapiers flew in, all stabbing at a single point, but Hoity Totiy expanded the shell of hardened air around him, and forced Rarity back to avoid being caught in the hardening field. She had to pull her mounted knights back as well, losing another to the shell of hard air that caught it like a fly in a web.
“It’s an incredible power,” Hoity Toity said, “One worthy of any Sternritter. Truly, you are making me struggle just to defend myself against your fabulous army, Queen of Roses. I will need to make full use of my Xenomorph to turn the tide.”
Rarity wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she sensed a shift in his reiatsu upon those words, along with a series of popping and squelching noises that seemed to emanate from within his body. Rarity pulled her mounted knights back and prepared her ranks of regular knights to surround and charge in. Not wanting to take the pressure off, despite the shell of hardened air around him, she had her cannoneers, newly positioned both above and below Hoity Toity, and open fire.
Explosions of crystal shrapnel smashed into the shell of hard air, and perhaps because it was focused on a smaller area, allowing the cannons to also focus their shots onto a single point, Rarity thought she saw the exploding crystals penetrate. However, rather than pulp Hoity Toity, the crystals seemed to splash through him. Rarity blinked, not sure what to make of what she was seeing.
Hoity Toity’s body suddenly moved, but now it spread out in a bizarre lashing of liquid tendrils, the four halos now carving into her ranks of knights like lashes from a hose. She could still see Hoity Toity’s wings, and head, floating around a central area of flesh colored liquid, but it was as if all of Hoity Toity’s body had been transmuted into a liquid state. Even as more cannons fired and blasted holes past the shell of hard air, the shards only splashed through Hoity Toity’s water-like body. His head, dripping like a candle of melting wax, showed her a curious look behind it’s chrome sunglasses.
“The Xenomorph changes the very nature of physical matter,” Hoity Toity said in a gurgling voice, “Weapons can only harm a person because their organs rely on staying intact, but liquid has no such need. So tell me, how do you intend to kill me if you can’t ‘cut’ me?”
Rarity could only respond with a dangerous light in her eyes and a smile sharper than any sword, “I don’t know, but an artist loves a challenge.”
----------
A car sped along the highway leading north and then east out of Canterlot City. The simple blue sedan could only go so fast, but the girl behind the driver’s seat was still ignoring all speed and traffic laws as she jammed the gas down as hard as she could and kept the car roaring towards her destination.
Fenice barely knew how to drive. Snippets of memory from a life before Hueco Mundo filtered into her head, of a kind and patient mother who’d just started teaching a girl not named Fenice how to drive a car for the first time. What little memory there was of that time was enough, it seemed, for her to at least avoid crashing the vehicle she’d “borrowed” from a motorist on the outskirts of town.
Even going well past the speed limit, it wasn’t fast enough for her tastes. Her spiritual senses weren’t on Roka’s level at all, but she could still feel the distant flashes and bursts of reiatsu from the still too far away Camp Everfree.
“C’mon...” she pleaded with the car, “Just get me there in time to do something.”
Or make it so it turned out she didn’t have to help at all. A part of her realized it was crazy to be rushing headlong into a fight even her father was a tad worried about. If nothing else, whatever happened, she felt she had to be there for it. Her Fullbring was back in it’s medallion shape, but it was hot as lava around her neck, glowing orange.
Her borrowed car screamed by a road sign that read; Camp Everfree 11 Miles.
----------
Every collision of Lament’s long, wickedly sharp nodachi, Lamentar, against the brutally blunt and gigantic blade of Kizuna produced shockwaves and winds more powerful than all but the strongest Earth born storms. The speed at which both opponents were now moving, slashing and stabbing in a eye defying tempest, made it so that a localized hurricane was forming above them simply from the frequency and intensity of their strikes. Dark clouds, thick and gray, loomed above and discharged forks of yellow and purple lightning from the collective clash of spiritual energies. Lesser individuals wouldn’t have even been able to approach this battlefield as it strayed to the north.
Lament and Sweet Cider both had their focus solely upon one another, barely noticing the terrain around them, or the fact that their constant movements were gradually making the epicenter of the fight drift away from Camp Everfree. A fortunate thing, in some respects, given that the shockwaves of their battle had started to generate localized earthquakes.
Sweet Cider had begun naturally holding back, as in truth she was largely unused to utilizing her full power in a fight. Usually most opponents couldn’t handle her long enough to even make releasing Shikai worth the expenditure of spiritual energy. Her husband, or rather what he’d become, was pushing her more than any other real opponent had. Sure, she’d sparred with her fellow Captains, and knew several of them were stronger than her, top among that number being the Captain Commander himself. She also wasn’t so full of herself she thought that she’d match the strongest Espadas such as Chrysalis or Tirek.
Yet somehow she was still surprised at just how much trouble “Lament” was giving her. With every swing of his blade matching hers, she was learning about him, however. He wasn’t physically stronger than her, but he was faster. Their reiatsu was about on par, even considering he hadn’t released his own Zanpaktou yet. He’d resisted her first devastating blast from Kizuna, but that was just the base blast. She had stronger ones she could unleash, but hadn’t because she knew her daughters, their friends, fellow students, and fellow Soul Reapers were close by. She wasn’t about to start dropping the equivalent of spiritual nukes while they were close by. Captain Celestia had taught Sweet Cider ages ago about the importance of restraint.
But restraint was getting harder by the second. It wasn’t simply that her injuries were mounting. Every flashing storm of attacks that passed between her and Lament left at least one or two fresh marks on her body. No, it was her anger that was mounting more than her wounds. Even if a part of her knew this rage wasn’t entirely natural, and resulting from her bizarrely fused Fullbring and Zanpaktou, she couldn’t stop the rising pulse of red heat in her blood and the pained, berserk rage thumping in her heart.
The very notion that the man she loved had been twisted into this unnatural husk of his former self made Sweet Cider want to give into madness herself. It made her want to rip apart the very gates of Heaven and demand to know why this had happened to her family! It was as if all the collective anguish of being separated from those she loved all this time, all the bitter anger over having to leave her children behind, and be forced apart from her husband and partner had now become a firestorm inside her.
She was going to end this, today, one way or another.
Her blade swiped forward with air shredding force, a long side swing that rippled with the smashing of the sound barrier.
Lament moved with the flickering speed of a shadow in the corner of one’s eye, turning into her strike and ducking as he swept his pale blade up in a parry that forced Kizuna up as well. Sweet Cider took the momentum of the parry and used it to flip backwards, kicking off the air with her feet and slamming Kiznuna around and down in an overhand chop. Her husband slammed his own feet onto the air and launched himself backwards, Kizuna’s edge tearing a slight chunk from his arm, leaving a black, open wound that didn’t bleed. Sweet Cider’s eyes seared with further outrage.
She’d injured Lament a number of times by now as well, yet the wounds did nothing. They didn’t bleed, didn’t even seem to cause him discomfort. Even regular Hollows still bled and felt pain, but his expression had become as still and lifeless as a statue as he fought her. There may have been a spark of the confused battle he was having with his own subconscious, but in the midst of their fight he seemed to have suppressed it.
She wasn’t sure what was worse, the idea that he might remember her, but was trying to make himself forget, or that he didn’t know her at all. Some back corner of her mind wanted to know what was making him want to deny knowing her so damned much, but her own anger was making it hard to think clearly. She wanted to purify her husband’s soul, so he’d at least have peace.
Her sword thrust out like the battering ram of a great warship. She nearly caught him, but he sprung up and managed to land gracefully on the flat of her blade. His own nodachi scraped along Kizuna as he rushed forward, slicing his Zanpaktou towards her neck. With a feral growl she let go of Kizuna with her right hand and actually grabbed Lamentar, halting it dead in place.
Before Lament could react, she yanked down, ignoring the pain in her palm as his insanely sharp blade cut into her reiatsu hardened skin. At the same time she surged up and smashed her forehead into Lament’s chin, further cracking bone and sending him reeling. As he spun backwards she held Kizuna up like a baseball bat, and a surge of raw, gold energy flowed up and down it’s rugged length.
At a casual glance, it looked like they’d drifted far enough away. Time to find out just how durable her husband really was. Bringing her sword down, Sweet Cider unleashed a cacophonous blast of golden force, twice as strong as the one she’d released before. A backblast of wind dispersed nearby clouds as the giant wave of power instantly crossed the sky and slammed into Lament with a detonation that caused nearby mountains to have avalanches from the residual echoes of sound.
Sweet Cider saw Lament go flying back from the explosion of force, his body trailing smoke, but still intact. His upper clothing had been torn away, and a abrasive burn mark now ran up and down his chest, while his right shoulder looked dislocated. More damage than before, but damned if her man couldn’t take a hit. A spark of love and admiration briefly piqued within her swirling thoughts of anger, and Sweet Cider growled at herself.
“Stop gawkin’ at his six-pack and chest ya damn fool girl,” she growled at herself, even as she ruefully admitted that her husband, even as pale skinned Arrancar, was still a fine looking man.
She prepared to unleash another blast, but Lament recovered from his fall and with one hand gripped his dislocated shoulder and forced it back into place. In the same moment he raised the arm attached to the freshly relocated shoulder and pointed a finger, firing a wide black and green Cero. Sweet Cider rushed to the side with a Flash Step, initially evading the beam, but Lament kept the blast going and swept his palm to trail the beam after her. She crossed the path of one of the smaller mountains and the Cero beam ripped a great chunk from it before dissipating, causing the top half of the stone edifice to slump and collapse.
“Watch where yer shootin’ ya damn idgit! This here’s a national park we took our kids too! I ain’t havin’ ya ruin it ‘cause ya can’t aim worth crap!”
Swiftly she skipped across the air in a series of rapid Flash Steps, coming right at him with another powerful overhand swing. Lament braced his arms across his blade and took the blow, and was shoved back by the ramming force of the blow. His feet scraped along the air as Sweet Cider kept pushing him back, their swords letting loose a rain of sparks.
His teeth flashed in a pained scowl, his eyes losing focus for a moment, “Don’t speak of my children. You don’t know them!”
“Fool, I damn well birthed ‘em! Bic Mac’s our eldest! Takes a lot after me in color, but he’s got yer features. A quiet, hard workin’ boy!”
“No,” Lament said in denial, lashing out suddenly with his leg, sending a kick into Sweet Cider’s side that knocked the air out of her. He pushed her sword aside and lashed out with a sudden upper slash that she barely avoided getting gutted by, and instead just took a light cut across the ribs.
“My eldest is Roka,” Lament said, “A finer daughter than I deserve, who’s helped me keep our family together for years.”
Sweet Cider glared at him, but confusion also reigned amid her fiercely angered eyes, “What family!? Hard Nail, you lost yer family when ya were killed, same as I did! But they’re still alive! You tryin’ ta tell me ya up and made another one with all o’ them Hollows?”
“What I am telling you, Soul Reaper, is that whomever you think I am, that man no longer exists!” Lament said, mentally doing all he could to stem the flow of memories trying to leak into his conscious thoughts from the depths of his subconscious. It was akin to batting at a rising tide in the dark. The name ‘Big Mac’ had brought to mind a squalling bundle of red, with big green eyes, that had looked up at him from a swaddle of blankets. No. He tried to shove the image aside. He couldn’t be that person. Not if he was also going to be who he was now.
Sweet Cider looked at him and spat, “Horseapples! I can see it in yer eyes! You remember! Lie all ya want, but that’s just you bein’ a straight coward!”
She came at him again, this time with a whirlwind of attacks that seemed to build in strength and momentum with each swing. While Lament was fast enough to intercept the cascade of strikes, each one was carrying a mountains’ worth of weight behind it and every blow his Zanpaktou took reverberated through his body like a scale-breaking tremor. Deathless or not, he felt his bones start to crack under the strain. However, he also knew the nails in his palms were weakening. Sweet Cider’s previous spiritual blast had caused the seals to loosen even further, and as Lament pressed his reiatsu against them, he felt he could break free of them soon.
Assuming he kept intact long enough to do so. Sweet Cider’s punishing assault ended with her leaping into a sideways spin, her sword turning into a giant propeller, and she hammered it down upon Lament with such force that he was launched straight down like a railroad spike. His impact uprooted trees and sent a ripple through the ground before it broke apart. He lay on his back in the center of a crater as he saw a red streak that Sweet Cider rushing down at him.
He managed to nimbly push himself into a handstand and push off with Sonido, vanishing just in time to avoid getting Sweet Cider’s meteor-dropped knee that ended up making the crater even later upon impact.
Lament appeared behind her, bringing Lamentar down upon her back. She twisted away, turning the deadly blow into a painful cut that still drew a spray of blood. Ignoring the pain she swung the flat of her sword around like a hammer and caught Lament squarely, rocketing him through the ground to smash into the rim of the freshly made crater.
Breathing heavily, Sweet Cider wiped her chin of sweat and took a second to catch her breath, while Lament slowly peeled himself out of the impact indent he’d made in the side of the crater.
“Yer... the most stubborn man I ever met, dead or alive,” Sweet Cider growled, preparing herself to unleash another wave of energy. While she was a bit winded, she was far from tapped out, yet. “I’m tryin’ ta save yer damn soul!”
“No,” he said, voice like cracking ice, “You’re trying to take me away from my family.”
“Right now ya don’t even know who yer family is, ya hard headed dolt! If ya let me purify ya, you’d be n’ Soul Society an’ we could be together. We could watch over our kids ‘till their time comes too, then we’d all be a’ family again. Only thing standin’ in the way o’ that is you makin’ this so damn hard on us both!”
She slammed Kizuna down, emitting a titanic wave of golden energy. Lament raised his left palm up, but then dragged the edge of his sword across that palm. While his body didn’t bleed, that didnt’ mean there wasn’t something akin to blood in there, like fine particles of dark red dust. Enough for his purposes.
“Gran Rey Cero.”
This Cero was more akin to a vortex of shadow, with only erratic bands and arcs of green light swirling around it’s outer edge as it blasted out of his palm in a wide beam to match the giant wave of gold energy flowing towards him. Upon the clash of the two fronts of spirit energy the very air wavered with the distortions in space caused by the colliding of such vast amounts of power. It didn’t take long before the intermingling energies triggered an explosion that forced both opponents to move back as fast as they could to avoid getting slammed by the insane release of energies that shot upwards into the sky and out of the atmosphere. Even citizens in distant Canterlot City felt the vibrations from the blast, and could only wonder at what the cause was, if not for the disastrous condition of their city still distracting them from what was happening many miles away in Camp Everfree.
Sweet Cider, now a few hundred meters up in the air, watched the fading energies of the combined explosion and swore under her breath as she saw that she and her husband had just leveled what was probably entirely too many square miles of pristine forest.
“Gorramit! Can’t let this keep goin’’. We’re doin’ too much collateral damage.”
“That is not my fault, woman,” Lament said, appearing before her at a respectable distance.
“Like hell it ain’t!” she shouted back, “Yer the one who’s too dang strong fer fightin’ in the world o’ the livin’, throwing yer Ceros about all willy nilly!”
“Willy nilly? I’m not the one flinging waves of destruction from her sword while shouting at me about family when I don’t remember who you even are!” he shouted back, raising his voice for the first time since she’d seen him, and almost sounding like his old self, “For land sakes woman, use some common sense before you go throwing accusations at others.”
“Don’t ya go talkin’ ta me ‘bout ‘common sense’, Hard Nail Apple! I ain’t the one tryin’ so hard ta ferget his family that he’d rather go blowin’ up mountains than listen ta his wife fer five minutes when she’s tryin’ ta tell ‘em who he is!”
Lament grunted, holding his forehead as his mind filled with so many echoes of fond, heated arguments with the very woman before him. His jaw ached with the familiar touch, both from her harsh fist and gentle kiss. The memories were there, yet all still fragmented, like he was stuck in an endless hallway of paintings showing another life, but none of them were in order or felt like they were truly showing him.
“Even if...” he gasped, “Even if what you say is true, I am not Hard Nail anymore. I am not the man you shared a human life with. Lament is what I am called, mostly by those who fear me. I am called ‘Father’ to my children. Abandoned Arrancar children I’ve taken into my home and looked after when no others would. I love them more than my own life, this one or any other I’ve led. If I let myself be slain by your blade, I’ll never see them again, and that is a fate worse than any other I can think of. So no matter what, I will not fall to you, Soul Reaper, no matter who you are.”
Upon hearing those words, Sweet Cider was left without words. She’d known, in the pit of her gut, that no matter what she said or did, her husband wouldn’t really ever be as he was. Hollows could be purified by a Zanpaktou, but even then the process tended to leave the purified soul without much memory of who they were. Even Hollows rarely recalled their human lives, so in Hard Nails' case it’d be doubly damaging to his memory. It was clear he did remember pieces of being Hard Nail, but it was all jumbled up inside his head.
On top of that, there was no mistaking the love in his voice when he spoke of his adopted family of Hollow children. Sweet Cider didn’t know what to think of that, but it did sound like something her husband would do. In a way she was glad to know that even as an Arrancar, her man still had a good heart. He’d always been so good with the kids, no wonder a bunch of Arrancar orphans took to him.
But it was clear then and there that she wasn’t going to get through to him. And a part of her wanted to call it quits at that realization. It wasn’t that simple, though. She still had to rescue Captain Luna, and Lament was standing in her way. Applejack and Apple Bloom were still in Camp Everfree, and if Lament was left to his own devices, either of them might get hurt. Also whether she liked it or not, she was still a Soul Reaper. She’d chosen to maintain that duty, and if what stood before her was an Espada, and not her husband, then she still couldn’t put aside her blade.
There was also the slight matter of the fact that she was extremely pissed off that all of this was happening, and the realization that she couldn’t get through to Hard Nail was the last straw on the pressure cooker that was her Zanpaktou.
Before Sweet Cider could fully grasp what was happening and try and stop it, Kizuna erupted with a golden aura shot through with veins of red. She could feel a tide of berserk rage flowing into her from her Zanpaktou as she could all but hear her Zanpaktou spirit in her mind, growling with feral desire to rend and break. She could almost see Kizuna’s spirit in her mind’s eye; a twelve foot tall, crimson skinned female oni with a single, prominent gold horn, clad in bear skins and carrying a huge, spiked club.
”Break him,” Kizuna said, ”If you want him, break him, and drag him home. I will help.
“No,” Sweet Cider said between clenched teeth, much to Lament’s confusion as she held onto her Zanpaktou with both hands and appeared to start trying to stem the flow of reiatsu out of her own blade, “That ain’t how I want this ta go down, Kizuna!”
Within her mind she could see her Zanpaktou spirit stomp a frustrated foot and fill her eyes with blazing golden flames, ”It is! You want him home! With family, where he belongs!”
“I do, more n’ anything’,” Sweet Cider said, striving against a storm of wrathful, near mad anger stemming from her Zanpaktou. Her eyes grew wet with tears she struggled not to show. “But not if I got ta cut the bonds he’s made with another family. Ain’t right.”
Despite her words, she was losing the struggle with her Zanpaktou, although she felt Kizuna’s own confusion. The energy spilling out of the blade wasn’t just her Soul Reaper reiryoku. The power of her Fullbring was there, bubbling up and clashing with her Zanpaktou’s spirit. Within her mind she could see the way Kizuna was being wrapped in barbed chains of stone, although the oni didn’t seem to notice them and rather grew less coherent as the madness of the Fullbring and Zanapktou fused together rapidly grew.
”I will help. I will help. He’s ours. He belongs at home with the children. Take him back. Ours. Ours! OURS!”
This wasn’t natural. Kizuna was always aggressive, but this was a completely different level. Sweet Cider knew that Starswirl had warned her about keeping a close eye on her Zanpaktou until he found a better way to either seal her Fullbring or seperate it from Kizuna, but Sweet Cider had thought she’d have more time. But of course things had gone this way, she realized. Under any normal circumstance she could have controlled this. She hadn’t had any trouble fighting regular Hollows, or facing Adagio and Thorax.
No, it was Hard Nail. All of the emotions surging up from inside her at having to face her husband had pushed her mental state and her Zanpaktou to the limit and now her Fullbring was causing Kizuna to go berserk, and sweep Sweet Cider right up along with it!
“What... is happening?” Lament said, not dropping his guard, but bewildered by what he was seeing and sensing. He could sense an immense surge of spiritual pressure from the Soul Reaper, but he also now sensed Hollow energy from her Zanpaktou. With a startled jolt of connection, he understood it felt very much like Fenice’s power. Even as he watched, a change came over Sweet Cider’s blade. Rock formed along its length, as if growing from the metal, coating it with a new edge.
Gold energy continued to pour out of the Zanpaktou, but now it flowed into Sweet Cider as well, and her skin grew to a darker shade of red as portions of rock started to grow across her skin as well, almost like armor.
“Lament...” she said, “H-Hard Nail, whichever ya wanna be called... ya need ta git outta here. I can’t... stop... Grrrrggggaaaaaah!”
The green of her eyes was overtaken by jets of gold light, flaring out like trails of fire. Abruptly a smooth, curved gold horn sprouted from the center of her forehead, and her already impressive muscles grew wider and more defined. By now Kizuna was entirely coated in a layer of rock, but rock that had sharpened along the edges, ironically turning the weapon into something more resembling an actual sword than it had been before.
When those eyes of flaming gold looked upon him, Lament felt the rare sensation of fear, and had to wonder to himself why, precisely, he kept ending up having to fight women who had berserk transformations? Had he angered some deity of fate in his previous life? Actually from the sound of things he’d been a halfway decent husband and father in his previous life, so that couldn’t be it.
Maybe it was just bad luc-
Before he could completely the thought, Sweet Cider let out a roar that was impressive in its vibrant rage, and shot forward so fast that even Lament’s reflexes barely let him get his sword up in time... and even then her haymaker punch slammed into his sword and pushed it back into his face hard enough to launch him at a downward angle into the ground, tearing through the earth in a long ravine.
----------
It was impossible for Applejack to not see where her mother was fighting, even if the battle itself had moved miles away from Camp Everfree. The air had continued to fill with residual shockwaves of air from the clash taking place, and her mother’s reiatsu was burning so brightly it was like feeling a second sun on Applejack’s skin. She had no idea who her mother was fighting, but they had to be terrifyingly strong to be able to stand up to what Sweet Cider was dishing out so far.
Applejack flew along on jets of energy from her hands and legs, and had watched in startled amazement as she saw waves and beams of energy explode in the air with the kind of force that’d have destroyed whole city blocks. It did occur to the farm girl that flying towards such a fight might not have been the wisest course of action, but it was her mother out there, and Applejack would be damned if she was going to let an Apple, let along her mom, fight a battle like this alone!
So she set her face in a resolved expression against the gale force winds stemming from the battle ahead and poured on the energy into her armored gauntlets and legs, streaking across the sky like a missile.
And so intent on what lay ahead she didn’t spare much of a look for what was below...
----------
Fenice had abandoned the care just short of the turn off that would lead towards Camp Everfree itself. She sensed her father’s reiatsu readily enough, and he’d drifted away from the camp and further north. She couldn’t tell who he was fighting, but they were insanely powerful, given the spiritual pressure Fenice could feel.
Needing a fast means of travel through the dense forest, she resorted to her only option. Summoning her Fullbring, she conjured from the blade a large pool of magma. She was immune to the substance’s scorching heat, and had full control of its motion. So what she did was simple; she leaped atop the surging wave of magma fuled by her huge claymore-like blade, and rode the magma as she directed it forward.
The living lava burned a path straight through the forest, boiling over trees and surging over rocks and hills with equal ease, all with Fenice riding atop it like a surfer catching a wave.
At the rate she was going, she’d catch up with her father in no time. What she’d do when she got there, she wasn’t precisely sure, but that wasn’t a thought that mattered to her right then. Her only concern was helping her family, consequences be damned!
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Rarity is almost a copy of Platnum, I think (the ice castle person)
10153261
If they tend up fighting, please set it on a chess board.
So Rarity's gone from Unlimited Blade Works to Army of the King. Or in Bleach terms, she went from Senbonsakura Kageyoshi (Byakuya) to Fuyukogo Sodaina Kyuden (Platinum). Although Court of the Generous Queen obviously has a Western motif as opposed to Platinum's eastern one.
Rarity vs Hoity seems like it's gonna be a battle of attrition. Someone with the ranged options he has, has no reason to come out of his liquid form and make himself vulnerable, unless he he runs out of Reiatsu. Unless the rest of the rainbooms arrive, which should prompt Hoity to retreat if he had any sense.
Well if Sweet Cider was already shaking Twilight Velvet's seal loose before, this Fullbring Shikai form should shatter it completely. Meaning this fight's gonna reach a whole other level of destructive, courtesy of two monsters with absolutely no restraint between them.
Applejack may be able to calm Sweet Cider, but I'm not sure about Fenice and the Lament. The whole point of his tower being made more durable than others, was to protect his children from him. I just hope Applejack and Fenice don't end up fighting because this is really not the time for that.
Oh man, the way you're trying character growth to the actual battles is magnificent. Rarity's new Fullbring gave me chills. And yes, I was aware of the news. I actually went and re-watched the Fullbring arc of the anime, since I didn't remember what happened too well. Needless to say, it made me appreciate the consistent quality of your writing even more. Still, my guess was that Rarity would be the one to lose control of her powers, not Sweet Cider, and transform into a wild, rampaging blood monster ala Carnage until Pinkie calmed her down.
Despite how awesome this is, I'm getting confused. Can someone please give me a tally of all the battles that are going on at the moment?
10154168
Complete with official ranks and titles because it makes everything sound even more epic.
Division 13 Captain Celestia vs Octava Espada Grogar Tambelon
Sternritter V (The Variable) Twilight Sparkle vs 12th Division Captain Starswirl
10th Division Captain (and Kenpachi) Sweet Cider vs Quatro Espada The Lament (Hard Nail)
Rarity vs Sternritter X (The Xenomorph) Hoity Toity
Substitute Soul Reaper Sunset Shimmer vs Gaea Everfree Gloriousa Daisy (possessed by the queen of thorns)
Technically the last one hasn't actually started yet but it soon will so I think it's okay to count it.
Another Amazing chapter!! Great job.
Holy cow is this a long fic. Took me three days to binge this entire thing. Holy wow, you just rekindled my love of Bleach.
Also, I love the way the Quincy are portrayed here. They're actually given nuance and aren't just nazi expies. I think I actually kind of like Sombra.
Oh, postscript: Twilight is best Quincy
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I don't know about that, Twilight's awesome and all but I personally think Sombra is best Quincy.
Sombra is my 2nd favourite character in the entire story, right behind Adagio.
Holy shit, things have evolved into quite the nightmare scenario for a lot of folks now! Rarity getting the damned equivalent of Gilgamesh’s Key of Babylon is INSANE! If you ever want a fox arranger with a grudge against Chrysalis then I have an OC design.
Sweet Cider VS. Lament is less "unstoppable force meets immovable object," and more "unstoppable force meets another unstoppable force head-on."
And Rarity's transformation and grand entrance gave me chill. All hail the queen, baby.
I've been curious what Rarity's completed Fullbringer would be like, and though I wasn't expecting it to be like this, I'm loving it.
On a different note, I'm really hoping Applejack and Fenice don't end up fighting each other since they're technically sisters, and we all know how the Apples value family.
I don't know what Hoity Toity is blabbering about? Liquid is the easiest state of matter to vaporize or to burn . Unfortunately Rarity choose a flashy horseback army as her skill set.
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It took me 2 weeks and I have 13 chapters to go. I get easily distracted.