Episode 126: The Decisive Collision, Part 1
Episode 126: The Decisive Collision, Part 1
Perched upon a mountain cliff that overlooked the ruined valley where, not long ago, the battle between Captain Sweet Cider and Lament had taken place, now reclined a woman with periwinkle blue skin and a curly head of minty green hair. She wore what could be considered a trimmed down version of a Soul Reaper’s black uniform, although sleeveless and with shorter leggings. She also had on a sleeveless version of a white Captain’s coat, although it bore no insignia on it’s back. She was sitting in a dark brown, high backed leather chair that looked as if it belonged in a mansion rather than on an exposed mountainside, and next to the chair was a mahogany table stand upon which a bottle of wine sat, uncorked. The woman held a wine glass filled up in one hand, which she drank deep from while leaning forward to give rapt attention to an obelisk of stone that stood about four feet high and was set just a few paces from her chair. At the top of the obelisk was a triangular protrusion with kanji symbols carved upon it’s sides, which glowed soft blue and projected an image above the obelisk.
The image was a crystal clear, real-time view of Sunset Shimmer’s confrontation with Gaia Everfree, alongside her friends, as if a professional film crew was present to record the event.
The woman took another pull of wine and made a gesture at the image, which flickered to show an equally clear image of Camp Everfree as students were led outside the enclosure of roots and vines to waiting busses outside. The woman’s brown eyes twitched a bit at the sight of Discord and Ditzy.
“Bold move, Discord. I think I see your play. I’ll be happy to let you upset Glory. Might be enough for her to get over you. Hmm, how’s our timing?”
Another flick of her wrist, the image shifting to that of the towering Senkaimon gateway network in Soul Society, where Soul Reapers could be seen assembling. Members of the Tenth and Eleventh Divisions, and the woman noted Captain Hurricane was present organizing things, speaking with a very distraught and haggard looking Captain Celestia.
“Poor girl. Gets her Zanpaktou calmed down, rushes home for help, and is still fighting bureaucracy. Good to know the gears of Central 46 still grind as slow as Glory designed them to. Still, looks like they’ll be here sooner rather than later. Hope it’ll be long enough for the show. Speaking of which...”
She changed the image back to Sunset Shimmer and her friends starring down the transformed and out of control Gaia. The woman watching the image grabbed the bottle to refill her wine glass, but after a moment’s consideration shrugged, tossed the glass, and just started drinking from the bottle.
Wiping her mouth, Medley of the Zero Division grinned with anticipation, “Half time’s over, ladies. If you’re going to step up to the big leagues, let’s see what kind of game you’ve really got.”
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A rough bubbling of laughter split Gaia Everfree’s face into a crooked, manic grin as she gazed upon the seven girls standing in the sky before her. Her hands gripped so tight upon the shaft of her double-bladed sword that the knuckles grew pale. Beneath the bulb of the giant rose her lower body was melded into, the dozen or so thorn tipped vines shook like angered cobras.
“All of you children interfering with me protecting my home has finally, truly, hacked me off! I don’t even know who all of you are, and quite frankly I don’t care! Anyone who doesn’t want perforated organs needs to find somewhere else to be. Now.”
“Gloriosa, please listen,” Twilight said, “I just want to help you-”
“Oh you’ve helped plenty, Twilight,” Gaia said, voice more piercing than the thorns she bore on her body, “Helped me finally understand that anyone who says they’re trying to help me is probably lying through their teeth to get something they want. I’ll give you the benefit of believing you didn’t intend for it to get this far, but you still used me and my brother for your own ends.”
“That’s not true!” Twilight said, “I wanted to keep you and Timber Spruce safe, and to make sure the magic you had didn’t harm anyone. It’s not too late to stop. Believe me, I know what it feels like for you right now, with all of that magic at your fingertips, like there’s nothing beyond your grasp! But it’s not real, Glorio-”
A magical blast of deadly energy, pulsating both green and purple, seared it’s way past Twilight’s head. It didn’t strike her, but it singed her cheek and hair, and the bolt, fired from the tip of Gaia’s blade, continued on to detonate in the distant forest behind the group of girls.
“Seems pretty real to me,” Gaia said, “And I don’t mind using this power to its fullest on all of you, if you’re insistent upon facing me. I am not the Gloriosa you knew, child. I am Gaia Everfree. This land is my domain. And trespassers upon my domain-”
Her aura exploded outward in a dark wind, it’s energies swirling around her and all seven girls found themselves being pressed upon by the weight of raw magic and a still very sizeable pool of spiritual pressure flowing from Gaia as the woman’s voice rose to a distorted, power fueled shout.
“-shall be punished!”
“I’d say diplomacy just failed!” Rainbow Dash said, glancing at Sunset, “Go time?”
Sunset gave a solemn nod to Dash and the rest of her friends, “Go time.”
They moved as one. Even if Sunset was unfamiliar with what new powers some of her friends might have now with their completed Fullbrings, she knew she could trust them to work together efficiently and didn’t doubt they’d be able to alter tactics on the fly. While all of them were injured to one degree or another, Sunset wasn’t worried. The only thing that gave her even a moment of pause was the fact that Rarity’s reiatsu was feeling odd, for some reason, but Sunset chalked that up to the nature of her new Fullbring.
Rainbow Dash, unsurprisingly, was the first to strike. Sunset was quite familiar with her friend’s superior speed, a trait even Sunset had trouble matching with her Bankai. It was a sight to behold now, as Dash turned into a fierce storm of cobalt blue streaks that left barely a flicker of a mirror image cast in lightning blue on everyone’s retina’s.
Gaia’s body had to have been struck hundreds of times in mere moments, Rainbow Dash’s motions circling the woman in an electrically charged circle from which Dash struck inward over and over again with her blazing lighting lance. When the maneuver finished, Dash flipped upwards, leaving the circle of lightning behind her that surrounded Gaia and then closed in upon her in a explosive burst of storm-born might.
“I call that number the ‘Thor Blitz’!” Rainbow Dash declared, then had to dodge as an arcane charged Cero beam nearly blasted her from the sky, missing by a hair’s length. Gaia, smoking from the electrical assault but not immobilized, glared at Dash and blurred out of view with a Sonido that took her in a line right at the speedster.
Rainbow was fast enough to get her lightning spear in front of her to block Gaia’s blade, but the force of the blow still drove Dash backwards across the sky. Fortunately Gaia couldn’t follow up, as Applejack and Fluttershy were now both in her face. They might not have been as fast as Rainbow Dash, but their speed was still more than enough to make it so Gaia couldn’t easily evade them as they attacked. Applejack’s drill lance thrust forward in a powerful blow that crushed the air around it, and Gaia would have tried to meet the blow with one of her own if not for the fact that Fluttershy was striking as well; with a rain of palm strikes from both her six flesh and blood hands, and a multitude of spectral fists of golden light that bloomed from her halo.
Gaia not only spun her double blade in a flurry of parries around her, but the thorn vines beneath her rose up in their own fast series of blinding counter blows, crashing into Fluttershy’s strikes. Gaia felt Fluttershy’s spiritual energy surge into her from even the simple contact with her fists, however, and could tell her own spirit energy was being pressed upon by the girl’s. It was as if Fluttershy was draining Gaia’s will to fight, sapping her strength, with every touch, and it was infuriating. To make matters worse, some of Fluttershy’s spectral hands had grasped Applejack’s shoulders and transferred power into the other girl, boosting her already incredible physical might.
This resulted in Applejack’s drill blow hitting with even more tremendous force, so that even when Gaia blocked the weapon’s spinning point with the thickest part of one of the ends of her double-blade, the impact still caused an eruption of force that rattled Gaia’s entire body and knocked her down towards the canopy of her tree.
“Ain't done yet!” Applejack shouted, the front of her drill opening to reveal it’s inner barrel, which fired off a barrage of golden beams down at the still descending Gaia, who took the blows in multiple explosive detonations before she hit the tree.
“Don’t give her a chance to recover!” Sunset said, Flash Stepping to the dusty cloud of tree debris where Gaia had landed, her sword filling with blinding blue flames.
“Not to worry Sunny, I’ve got a whole rain of ‘Get well soon’ cards with her name on it!” Pinkie Pie said, appearing on the opposite side of the cloud in front of what looked like a comically gigantic mail bag filled to the brim with what appeared to be already lit sticks of dynamite.
Sunset just rolled her eyes and smile as Pinkie used her hammer to bat the mailbag of cartoonish explosives at Gaia, while she herself swept Hokori out in a wide arc while shouting, ”Aoihi Senko!”
She carefully manipulated the blue flames that burst from her blade so that the incredible force and heat of the technique didn’t explode outward in a mass, but instead flowed up into multiple tendrils of blue fire that rose up and around where Gaia had landed and then descended down in a concentrated storm, right atop Pinkie’s mailbag of explosives.
The resulting detonations tore up large chunks of the top of the tree, causing portions of it to catch fire.
Sunset could feel Gaia’s reiatsu within, erratic but still rising. However, she could tell the surge of spirit energy Gaia was gaining was ebbing out, as if the flow of it from the tree was slackening. Was something going on with the tree itself? Gaia had ceased sending magic through the tree to wherever that power had been going. Perhaps that was having an unseen effect?
Regardless, Gaia wasn’t down. If anything when she emerged from the fire and smoke she looked even more enraged, and only lightly wounded. Sunset and her friends where hitting her, sure, but Gaia was a whole order of magnitude tougher than previous foes they’d fought together. But Sunset refused to let this be another instance like Captain Hurricane. She and her friends would win this, whatever it took.
By now Twilight and Rarity were in position for their own attacks, both having hung back while their friends had rushed in. Twilight knew her energy, both spiritual and magical, was pretty well drained from her fight with Sapphire Shores. She could summon her bow, even without the Hexenfaust, fortunately, but she knew she had to be careful with how she utilized her remaining power. Even the Variable needed spirit energy to fuel it, so timing would be critical.
That was why, as the others had attacked, she moved close to Rarity and said, “I have an idea on how to get through to Gloriosa, but I’ll need to get close to her. Can you make an opening for me?”
To this, Rarity had given Twilight a dazzling show of teeth, winking, “Darling, I can make you all the openings you could possibly want, and give you quite the stunning escort in the process.”
Rarity snapped her fingers, and the towering red gate behind her flung itself wide open, where a shining crimson light poured forth. Twilight turned and looked as a veritable army of knights clad in magnificent ruby armor came charging forth. No slow parade march, instead Rarity’s knights came pouring onto the battlefield at full speed, taking up quick formations with the precision of experts. Twilight found herself surrounded by mounted knights upon winged steeds, with Rarity leaping upon her own white mount while forming a diamond bright rapier to her hand that she brandished ahead of her.
“Just follow us, Twilight, and I’ll ensure that Gloriosa can’t so much as lay a finger on you,” Rarity declared, before swooping down at where Gaia stood, her pegasus knights following her.
Twilight noted the on-foot knights were spreading out in a cordon around the battle area, as if seeking to block off any routes Gaia might use to maneuver or flee, while cannons were being kept near the gate itself. Twilight surmised Rarity, despite her bravado, was actually being quite cautious, holding most of her forces back in reserve until Gaia’s full power was determined. Inside her mind, Twilight felt Midnight agreeing with Rarity’s choice. Gaia was running on more magic now than reiryoku, although both were present in her in worrying amounts. By Twilight’s guess, Gaia would be just as difficult an opponent as Sapphire Shores was, and unfortunately Twilight was even less certain of how to win here than she’d been against her would-be assassin.
Yet despite that she felt a surge of confidence as she watched her friends fight. She felt the charge in the air that stemmed from being beside these girls. Even if she’d gone on her own path for a time, and still had paths to walk that might take her away from them, these friends of hers would always be a source of strength. As a group, they shored up one another’s weaknesses. It was no guarantee of victory, but Twilight didn’t deal in absolutes, but rather... variables. And friendship was a variable that certainly didn’t hurt to have on one’s side.
She followed Rarity down, kicking off the air with Hirenkyaku to keep up with the swift moving pegasus knights. Gaia saw them coming, along with the fact that not only did she still have Sunset Shimmer and Pinkie Pie flanking her, but the other girls were swiftly regrouping and rushing down as well.
Gaia growled under her breath, “Rise up, my beloved forest. Show them that this is our land, forever!”
She thrust a clawed hand upwards, emerald fire thick as sap rolling off her in rivers that rushed into the tree boughs around her. The tree rumbled and shook, and the wood of the branches morphed and erupted in gouts of bubbling green sap and flame. Limbs grew and twisted, heads like jagged chunks of coral forming with blazing green eyes, mouths and claws pointed as needles. First one, then soon dozens of humanoid shaped creatures born of magic, wood, and fury rose up in a chittering mass. Thorns covered their wooden exteriors and their limbs bled magical green flames as they howled and leapt to their master’s bidding.
The girls were soon finding themselves contending with no shortage of foes, with Rarity’s pegasus knights the primary target of the leaping surge of tree-born monstrosities. Soon ruby crystal blades contended with magically fueled claws in a brutal aerial melee, Rarity ducking under a lightning fast swipe from one creature whom she then sliced in half with her blade as she kept astride her mount, whose crystal hooves smashed another wood monster to splinters despite having a chunk of it’s wing torn off in the process.
Sunset Shimmer was similarly beset, and as she hacked her way through several of the creatures with a fiery swing of her Zanpaktu, she noticed just how similar these things were to the Timber Wolves of Equestria, only with human-like shapes. While they individually weren’t particularly tough, their needle claws and fangs were sharp enough to be concerning, especially with how empowered by magic they seemed to be. Worse, more kept boiling up out of the tree, even as Gaia leapt back into the fray, coming straight for Rarity and Twilight.
Sunset blasted upwards, her fire wings rocketing her skyward in pursuit as she barreled through half a dozen of the wood creatures. Pinkie Pie in the meantime shifted her mask to black as Pinkamena took over, and proceeded to chomp the head off of one of the creatures in front of her while hefting her hammer.
“Blech, I know mom and dad said I ought to eat more veggies, but this isn’t what I had in mind,” Pinkamena said, “I prefer meat, you twiggy bastards!”
Aw, Mena, you called them mom and dad! Pinkie Pie said in her mind as Pinkamena spun around with her hammer and started to form a pink tornado of destruction around the thickest grouping of tree monsters.
Gaia flashed past Rarity, double-blade carving an air rending path. Rarity leaped off her mount to avoid the blow, but found herself still having to contend with a barrage of stabbing rose vines that she created a series of floating red shields at her side to help counter. A blow still got through, cutting her side, and Rarity noticed a fierce burn there that instantly clued her in to another issue with fighting Gaia as she felt her body start to break out into a sweat.
“Be careful!” she called out, “Her thorns are poisonous!”
She immediately hardened the blood flow around the wound, crystalizing parts of the area to try and slow the flow of poison. Gaia sped back towards her for another pass, but was struck off curse by a barrage of arrows as Twilight unleashed a Licht Regen. Fortunately the Quincy girl was being covered from interference by Gaia’s summoned monsters by Rarity’s knights, who were engaged in a fierce and fast melee that kept Twilight in the clear.
The hundreds of reishi arrows struck Gaia, many of them bouncing off her rather potent Hierro reinforced skin, which was further empowered by magic coursing from her every being, but Gaia still felt something... off the moment those arrows struck her. While a few did manage to penetrate for a bit of damage, it was more that Gaia felt a pulse of reiatsu from Twilight that instantly left her feeling strange.
Why did she want to hurt all of these girls so badly? Why was she so incredibly angry? Why was Gaia so intent on carving out a territory here and punishing everyone? Gloriosa just wanted her brother and home to be safe. Shouldn’t they stop-
“Argh!” Gaia shook her head. Where had those thoughts come from? For a moment it was like the Gloriosa part of her had gotten more influential in her head. Had Twilight somehow done that!? “You’ll pay for that!”
She rushed Twilight, but found Sunset coming up beneath her, while Rainbow Dash and Applejack were flying in from above in a pincer move. Gaia cursed under her breath as she sought to counter all three attackers at once, her rose vines extending both above and beneath her while magical power and the spiritual energies both gathered at the thorn’s tips. Thin, magically charged Ceros exploded out in thick curtains both up and down, forcing Sunset, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack to throw themselves into fast evasions amid the rain of destructive beams.
More magically charged than her earlier Ceros, Gaia was able to twist the beams so they bent and curved towards their targets, making them all the harder to dodge. Rainbow Dash was still able to do so through pure, undiluted speed that even allowed the girl to throw in some flourishing rolls and stylish poses as she slipped through the barrage. Applejack had a tougher time of things, using the jet thrusters from the vents on her armor to make harsh maneuvers that still left her having to simply tank several hits. Fortunately her lance and armor were tougher than ever before, so even one or two direct hits from the arcane Ceros might have scored her armor and rattled her bones, but Applejack powered through them all the same. Sunset combined well rounded speed and defense, able to elegantly fly past most of the beams coming her way, and relying on Hikari’s shield to block those she couldn’t. Even so, more beams were being sent her way than at her friends, so even with her shield to protect her, Sunset’s shoulder was hammered by a beam that seared away a portion of her armor and left a bleeding mark on the skin beneath.
But all three girls still got through the barrage and reached Gaia, weapons ready. Rainbow Dash struck first, spinning her spear while her prismatic wings surged with twin lines of lightning that gathered down the length of her arms and charged the tip of her spear into a crackling sphere that she flung forward.
Gaia threw a hand out to try and bat the lightning sphere away, but upon contact the sphere exploded into multiple forks of lightning that coursed through Gaia in a painful series of jolts. She then felt an impact behind her as Applejack shoved her lance into the back of Gaia’s shoulder, the drill spinning up with energy jets turning the lance into a golden cone of power.
“Guh!” Gaia was knocked back, but despite Applejack’s hit actually leaving a bleeding mark in its wake, Gaia instantly retaliated against both girls with a blazing spin of her double-blade that expulsed a wave of searing green force in a circular arc around her. The strike was so fast that even Rainbow Dash couldn’t properly dodge, the cutting arc of energy slicing her side and damaging her left wing, while Applejack’s chest armor sparked from the blow and a gouge was left down the center. Not deep enough to bleed, but enough to send the farmgirl flying backwards.
Sunset let out a shout that was half fear for her friends, half rage at them being injured, and slammed her sword forward while throwing herself into a flame propelled spin that turned her into a momentum fueled blender of fire. Her first blow cut a bloody line across the rose bulb of Gaia’s lower body, while the second trimmed a petal of two off the rose itself, which disturbingly enough started to bleed sap-like green blood. Gaia was fast on the defense, however, roaring in pain and fury as she spun to face Sunset’s assault, and her double-blade met Sunset’s in a flash of power and force.
Sunset held firm for a moment, but then had to dodge back as the rose’s thorny vines stabbed from below and whipped Sunset backwards.
“I don’t care what right you think you have to play hero and interfere with my life! You girls should understand! Your lives were turned upside down, too! Doesn’t that make any of you angry!?”
“The only thing making me angry right now is that after all the suffering that’s happened today, you’re only trying to add to it,” Fluttershy said, having appeared above Gaia, with her six flesh and blood hands forming prayer-like clasped gestures in front of her while form her halo a series of golden hands emerged and formed together into nine large palms that arrayed to either side of Fluttershy. “Enlightenment Technique: Flower Flowing Down River.”
The nine golden palms shot down in one group, arrayed in such a manner that they appeared like one large set of flower petals hammering down at Gaia.
Upon Gaia’s back the two large thorns grew in size and shifted forward like twin horns, and from their tips twin Ceros fired in a flashing mass of purple and green death, combining into one oversized beam that was filled with the kind of power to flatten a city.
“Fluttershy! Dodge!” Rainbow Dash shouted, seeing the beam heading right for Fluttershy and her friend’s attack, and to Dash’s senses it didn’t feel like Fluttershy’s technique could stop that twin Cero.
However upon contact with the Cero beams, the nine palms of the Flower Flows Down the River moved like a swaying swan in the sky. One palm led, slowly breaking apart under the Cero beams, but moving the beams ever so slightly to the side, then the next palm did the same, then the next, and the next, until seven palms had disintegrated from the Ceros but by then the beams had been redirected enough so that they flew by Fluttershy with a few feet to spare.
The remaining two golden palms slammed home on Gaia’s body, bursting into gold light that didn’t seem to damage Gaia, but left her crying out anyway as her power was sapped, and Fluttershy was able to establish a more direct connection between Gaia and her Fullbring.
“Gloriosa,” Fluttershy said, “Do you truly want to keep hurting people? Do you not just want to live peacefully with your brother?”
Gaia clutched her head with one hand, “Grr, get out of my mind! I don’t need even more people trying to control me!”
In a burst of green light, Gaia didn’t simply move towards Fluttershy, she teleported. Twilight instantly recognized the magic for what it was, and shouted her own warning to Fluttershy as Gaia popped back into existence behind the girl.
“Look out!”
Fluttershy’s instincts for battle had certainly sharpened, as even as Twilight was shouting, the girl flowed like water into a side step that let her avoid Gaia’s first blow, and even bend away from the second swipe of the deadly double-blade. However Gaia’s third strike contained another bursting arc of potent green magic that expelled out in a wide wave. Fluttershy guarded herself with a series of golden hands that crossed in front of her at the last second, but the magical blade arc still smashed into her and sent her flying down into the thick tree foliage below.
Before Gaia could gain any satisfaction from landing a hit on Fluttershy she found herself beset on all sides by a rain of deadly, crimson arrows, crystalline spears, and exploding bursts of spiritually charged cannon fire. Rarity’s knights, who had deployed and waited for an opening by surrounding the area, now opened fire upon Gaia with all of their might. Red arrows and thrown spears flashed with energy and exploded upon impact with Gaia, or even if they landed near her. Cannons belched forth highly charged shards of crystal that detonated with earth flattening force.
Rarity herself smirked as she cut down several more of Gaia’s tree monsters and rallied her pegasus knights around her and Twilight, “I do believe we’re wearing her down.”
“We have to be careful,” Twilight said, snapping several swift arrows out to blast away a trio of tree creatures that had tried to leap over the phalanx of knights, “Her spiritual pressure isn’t going down, and I can feel the magic inside her still rising. Those gems are fueling her with what feels like nearly infinite energy. All we’re doing is chipping away at her, right now.”
“Then chip we shall!” Rarity declared, “And whatever power you used on her, keep doing so. Between you and Fluttershy, perhaps we can get Gloriosa’s personality back in control.”
“We know a thing or two about multiple personalities,” said Pinkamena as she broke through the wall of tree creatures with a surge of black and red tentacles forged from what appeared to be her own shadowy aura, the tendrils gaining gnashing mouths that chewed up the monsters like chainsaws, “How about me and Pinks take a crack at her while you guys have fun with the veggie buffet?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea- and there she goes,” Twilight said, sighing as Pinkamena literally threw her hammer into the air, then jumped up on it like someone riding a surfboard.
Flying up, Pinkamena licked her lips, “You got this Pinks?”
The mask shifted over to white and Pinkie Pie’s eyes flashed merrily, “Oh yeah! Let’s wrap her up nice and pretty for the rest of the girls to do their thing!”
The salvos of attacks from Rarity’s army had kept Gaia pinned in place for a few moments. Her body was taking some light wounds from it all, but for the most part the storm of exploding crystal weapons and cannon rounds was deafening and obscuring her vision, which was far more concerning than the damage itself.
With an echoing roar, Gaia opened her mouth wide and a thick, swirling gout of emerald power flashed outward as she moved her head around and swept it over the surrounding knights. The beam hammered the army of crystalline constructs, but Rarity had smartly deployed them so that they were spread out and nearly impossible to wipe out in one go. Gaia’s Cero destroyed many, but many more still remained by the time the beam petered out. More importantly, Gaia had been so focused upon her attack, and been so blinded by the cacophony of explosions around her, that she hadn’t even sensed Pinkie Pie’s approach. Thus she was caught quite unawares as the pink menace flew up in front of her, flipping off her hammer, and caught it by the handle before spinning around and smashing it straight at Gaia’s chest.
The impact knocked the air out of Gaia’s lungs, and also generated a loud, pin-ball sound as she found herself rather incomprehensibly rolling along what looked like a skee-ball ramp that appeared in the air behind her, which sent her flying up towards a series of point labeled holes. Landing in the center hole, Gaia found herself inside darkness for a moment, confused. She’d landed in a giant floating pink gift box with black ribbons that wrapped up into a big bow.
Pinkie Pie then started wrapping chains around the box, although where she got the chains was anyone’s guess.
“Mena, nails please!” she said, and a clone of Pinkamena formed from her shadows handed over a box of nails, as Pinkie started hammer boards onto the gift box, moving over it rapidly like someone on fast forward.
That done, Pinkie Pie waved down to Twilight, “Better get up here to give her another dose of whatever you got, Twi! I’ll go check on Fluttershy!”
“On it! Rarity, cover me!” Twilight said, leaping upwards towards Pinkie Pie’s bizarre floating ‘present’. She could sense the entire odd object Pinkie’s power had summoned was effectively made out of pure reishi, but was quite solid for something that looked so ridiculous. The only problem was that Twilight could sense Gaia’s power within already tearing at her confinement, so she doubted Gaia would stay held for very long.
Rarity flew after Twilight, keeping pace easily. When dozens of the wooden monsters still spawning from the tree leaped up into their path, needle teeth dripping poisonous sap as they rushed the pair, Twilight didn’t even have to use her bow as Rarity surged ahead. Her diamond bright blade lengthened to a claymore and Rarity carved through the monsters in a blazing arc, while a tempest of crystalline weaponry flowed from her in a steady stream. Wooden husks fell like broken kindling from Rarity’s path, her motions as elegant as a professional dancer’s as she carved a way for Twilight.
Twilight wasn’t alone in surrounding the chained up present that Pinkie had trapped Gaia in. Sunset Shimmer was there too, and Rainbow Dash reached them a moment later along with Applejack.
“So we blasting this thing all at once or what?” Dash asked.
“Wait,” Twilight said, checking her tattered uniform. She came up with only two remaining ginto tubes, which she clutched in her artificial right hand, “My Variable can give Gloriosa’s personality more influence, but to use it at full strength it’s better if I can directly inject my reishi into her.”
“Yer what now?” Applejack said, and Sunset quickly interjected as the giant floating present started to tremble and smoke.
“I don’t think we’ve got time for Twilight to explain. Gaia is about to break free. When she does, we need to blitz her with everything we have, so Twilight can do what she needs to do. Right?”
“Right,” Twilight confirmed, “But I don’t know if-”
She was going to say she didn’t know for sure if giving the Gloriosa side of Gaia’s fused personality more control would actually end the fight or not, but it became a moot point as green and purple energies burst out of the present, shattering the boards and chains around it and effectively ripping through Pinkie Pie’s reishi like a hot laser through cheese.
There was an explosion of light as Gaia’s power tore her free of her confinement, and with a heaven shaking shout Gaia rushed the girls, grabbing Twilight by the throat before anyone could react.
“Sorry, don’t feel like letting you undo centuries of waiting to regain a proper body!” Gaia spat in Twilight’s face and with tremendous power she threw Twilight down with the force of a comet. Twilight felt the sound barrier break around her body as she careened down, and all she could do for that moment was reinforce herself with Blut Vene as best she could before she felt herself impact with the tree, shattering through several building-thick branches before slowing enough to bounce off of another branch and land on a final one in a heap.
“Twilight!” Sunset shouted, while Rainbow Dash, face electric with rage, quite literally as her eyes filled with lightning, vanished in a crack of thunder.
Dash struck Gaia across the face with a punch filled with incandescent lightning, a blow like the fist of Zeus... and Gaia would have known, since she was old enough to remember when those deities were more than just myths. The punch shocked Gaia, but not as much as Rainbow following that up with a hundred more strikes just like it. The girl spun around Gaia in a constant curving streak of cobalt light, her fist, feet, and spear ramming into Gaia in blinding succession.
Each hit was followed by an echoing peal of thunder, and Sunset and Applejack were left staring at the sudden ferocity of Dash’s attacks.
“EAT! IT!” Rainbow Dash’s voice was about as loud as the thunder of her strikes as she ended her assault by flying straight up and extending her wings out to their fullest. The prismatic energies of the wings grew like blades of light, and above Dash the air trembled with dark storm clouds that localized just above Dash. Then streams of lightning shot down into her wings and concentrated there, filling her wings until they looked like the limbs of some mythical electric dragon.
“Let’s see you shrug this off!” Dash shouted as she thrust her spear forward, and it’s electric tip flared with a surge of godly storm power just like her wings, “Gigavolt Stormboom!”
Three titanic bolts of lightning descended, one from each wing, and one from the tip of Rainbow Dash’s spear. The three bolts spun together into one massive electrical event of incalculable voltage. It crashed into the already dazed Gaia and continued on into the tree beneath her. The flash lit up the forest for miles around and created a crack of thunder so loud that it shook the ground, even in distant Canterlot City, where confused and still fearful citizens looked to the sky for the source of unnaturally loud thunder.
“Ugh,” Applejack had shielded her eyes from the flash, and as her vision cleared she shouted, “Dang it Dash! Ya tryin’ ta fry all o’ us too!?”
Rainbow Dash, panting a little from the effort of using what was effectively one of the strongest techniques she’d come up with so far, rolled her eyes at Applejack, “Aw c’mon, I wasn’t even aiming at you or Sunset.”
“Yeah but ya just electrocuted the whole dang tree!” Applejack shot back, “Did ya ferget most o’ our friends, including Luna an’ that Timber guy are all down there!?”
“...Oh...uh... whoops?” Dash said, gulping, “P-pretty sure I focused it all on that Gaia chick. I don’t think the electricity spread too far from the impact point.”
“Thank you, Rainbow darling, I needed a heart attack today on top of everything else!” Rarity shouted from below, having leaped out of the way in time to avoid the lightning, although a few of her knights had been caught in the blast and subsequently toasted. “A little warning next time would not go unappreciated!”
“Sorry, I was just... mad, okay!? Is everybody okay?” Dash said, looking worried.
“I hope so,” Sunset said, flying down towards the tree canopy, with Applejack and Rainbow Dash both following. It only took her a second to feel her friend’s various reiatsu signatures, including Clover’s, whom Sunset had lost track off. The last she’d seen of Clover, she’d been chasing after wherever Timber had been taken by the vines of the tree. She could sense them, if faintly, but they were somewhere far below and she couldn’t tell what was happening with them. As for the others...
“Gah, yikes Dashie, you really know how to make a party electrifying,” Pinkie Pie said as she hopped up out of some of the tree’s foliage with Fluttershy in two. Fluttershy had some blood trailing down her face from a cut on her scalp and looked bruised up, but otherwise still fit to fight, and neither looked as if they’d been hit by any of Rainbow Dash’s electricity. Pinkie Pie’s eyes blinked rapidly as she glanced about, “Hey, where’s Twilight?”
“She may be hurt. Fluttershy, can you get to her?” Sunset asked, and Fluttershy steadied herself while giving a calm nod and immediately heading in the direction where Twilight had fallen. However before she could get even halfway across the tree canopy the entire upper area of the tree light up with a sickly aura of pulsating green light, and Gaia Everfree burst up from the depths of the canopy where she’d been knocked down by Dash’s attack.
She wasn’t unscathed. Her body was sporting char marks and was bleeding from more than a few cracked portions of armor and sizzled skin. Rainbow Dash’s attack had left its mark and delivered one of the first truly painful blows to Gaia that she couldn’t immediately recover from. Yet this also fueled her magic maddened rage and as she cast her dark eyed gaze around her she spun around and made a slashing motion with her double blade. Spinning so fast, she stirred up a tornado-like whirlwind that stirred all the many branches of the tree, and in a mere second a blizzard flurry of leaves kicked up into the air. Only the leaves were hardened by spiritual energy and magic, sharper than razors, and each one glowed with an fluctuating green aura.
Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were the closest to the top of the canopy and had to defend themselves faster than the others.
For her part, Fluttershy didn’t abandon her goal of reaching Twilight and surrounded herself in a cordon of her own glowing gold hands that punched continuously around her to deflect the thousands of razor leaves that came her way. Each golden hand smashed through the leaves or turned them aside, creating a sphere of protection around Fluttershy as she speedily dashed for Twilight’s location.
Pinkie Pie was quick to protect herself as well, although to do so she let Pinkamena take over as Pinkamena was better at controlling the shadowy red tendrils they could form from their aura. As a result Pinkamena effectively jumped upward, surrounding herself with a wave of bloody red and black tendrils filled with sharp toothed mouths that slapped at, bit, and otherwise consumed the leaves coming at them.
Those girls higher up fared easier, as they had an extra second to react, and Sunset took care of the primary defense by charging up Hokori and unleashing a potent wave of fire below her that burned through the central portion of the razor leaves. As a result Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack only had to contend with a much reduced storm, however Gaia’s intention had only been to occupy the girls attention for a moment, allowing her to focus her own vengeful anger upon the target of her choosing.
By now Gaia had realized the biggest threats to her in this battle were Fluttershy and Twilight, despite the fact that Rainbow Dash had just proved capable of inflicting quite a bit of pain. Gaia didn’t doubt that any one of these girls could inflict serious damage if given enough time, or if they were allowed to fully combine their powers, but it was Fluttershy and Twilight who seemed to have an ability to affect Gaia’s mental state and disrupt the fusion with her human host.
That couldn’t be allowed.
Twilight was already down, if not out, so the logical next target was Fluttershy.
Even as Flutteshy reached the wide branch that Twilight had fallen on, Gaia appeared in front of her path in a flash of Sonido, brandishing her double blade, and all of the rose vines upon her body poising as one to strike.
“You have a beautiful form and power, girl, but I’m afraid I’ll have to mar it before you ruin everything,” Gaia said, and her thorn tipped vines rushed Fluttershy as she herself charged the girl with her double-blade forming a flashing maelstrom in front of her.
Fluttershy planted her feet in a wide stance, her six limbs curled back into fists, and her eyes flared with golden light as a plethora of spectra hands exploded from her halo. She had a friend in front of her that needed her healing aid, and she was not about to back down from any threat between her and Twilight.
For a second a veritable hurricane of blows passed between the pair, with Fluttershy’s scores of golden hands impacting with the hundreds of strikes from Gaia’s stabbing rose thorns. Fluttershy boldly stepped in to meet Gaia’s spinning blade, using careful, minimalist side steps and turning motions with her flesh and blood hands to deflect the viscous blades. It was courageous, but also a losing prospect, as even with Fluttershy’s speed and strength much increased from what it once was, Gaia held the advantage, a fact that became readily apparent when after only a few instances of Fluttershy turning Gaia’s blade aside she found the simple impact of raw force and magic from Gaia’s weapon was tearing into the muscles in Fluttershy’s arm.
Still, all was not in vain, for Fluttershy’s strength was not in simple physical blows, but in the nature of her Fullbring’s power, and with Gaia challenging her directly, it allowed Fluttershy to inject more of her reiatsu into Gaia and strengthen the connection between them, which she used to further sap away at Gaia’s power, slowly, subtly weakening the titanically powerful Arrancar’s strength.
Gaia knew it, too. Which was why her ferocious assault on Fluttershy was a ruse. She’d sent a wave of her power into the branch beneath her, and as Fluttershy was focused upon defending herself from the front she didn’t take notice of the spike of wood forming from the branch behind her.
“Fluttershy!”
The shout came just an instant before the spike stabbed at Fluttershy’s back, faster than even inhuman eyes might follow. There was a flash of cobalt light, and a rocketing roar, and Fluttershy felt herself knocked aside, followed by a crack of wood.
Rainbow Dash had flown down in beyond the speed of lightning and shoved Fluttershy out of the way, although in turn the wooden spike had stabbed into Rainbow Dash’s side, breaking a portion of her armor in the process as a gout of blood flew out of the speedster. Applejack had descended as well, not as fast as Dash but fast enough to only be a split moment later in using her drill lance to smash the branch and the spike before it got too deep into Dash.
And at the same moment Sunset Shimmer and Rarity arrived, the former’s blade blazing blue as she slammed it at Gaia from behind.
”Aoihi Senko!”
Gaia spun about and unleashed a green wave of power from her double-blade that clashed directly with the azure flames of Sunset’s attack. The two blasts fo energy combined together in a roaring explosion that knocked everyone further away, Rarity using her knights to shield herself and Twilight, whom she’d gathered up and leapt away with.
“Rarity, fall back with the wounded to the top of the canopy!” Sunset shouted, “Fluttershy, heal whoever you can! Applejack, with me! We’ll keep her busy while Fluttershy heals!”
“I hear ya, Sunset!” Applejack said, and flew up to Sunset’s side as Gaia, who’d been knocked into the tree’s central trunk, pulled herself out of the dent she’d made in the bark and stared hatefully at the pair.
Rarity nodded, and with her knights helping the wounded Twilight and Rainbow Dash, she started heading towards the top of the tree with Fluttershy. Meanwhile Applejack cracked her neck and revved up her drill lance while Sunset Shimmer’s flaming wings flared up with renewed intensity and Hokori’s blade grew bright as a near solid bar of fire.
Gaia extended the thorns on her back so they grew over her shoulders, and in an instant she and the two girls facing her vanished from sight, only to impact with each other a moment later in a burst of force that shook the branches around them. Applejack’s drill lance struck in a mountainous series of avalanche thrusts, rocket jets of power from the Applejack’s armor boosting the power of each strike. Sunset’s sword flared with bursts of flame from every blow, her shield flashing with with light as it absorbed strikes from Gaia’s flailing blade and thorns. Applejack and Sunset were like two golden and orange shooting stars, flashing in and out around Gaia, while Gaia’s back thorns and double-blade carved green arcs at the girls.
Sunset twisted around one blow that destroyed several branches behind her only to feel a thorn slash her side. The burn of poison was instantly felt, but Sunset powered through it, returning a upward flaming slash that cut through one of Gaia’s rose vines. Applejack ducked a back slash from the double-blade, opening the drill on her lance to shove the barrel of the cannon beneath into the rose bulb where she unleashed an explosive burst, point blank. This blew a chunk of the bulb off, which spurted green blood, but in return Gaia rammed several rose vines into Applejack’s chest. The farmgirl’s armor held out, but cracked in places and she felt the sharp pain of at least a few more cracked ribs to add to the collection she’d already earned fighting her father.
“What’s wrong?” Gaia taunted, “Feels like you’re all slowing down.”
“Shut yer yap! Dash ain’t the only one with an ace or two ta play!” Applejack spat back, and jetted backwards, gaining a dozen or so meters of space. Sensing that her friend was about to go all out, Sunset decided to make sure Gaia couldn’t interfere and renewed her own effort to hold Gaia’s attention but creating a few more flame clones to help with attacking Gaia.
Gaia contemptuously started slashing through the clones, knowing them for the distraction they were, and with her left hand started charging up a Cero sphere at the tip of her finger.
Applejack, now with some distance, leveled her drill lance, which had closed its front tip to conceal the cannon again, but Applejack still pulled the trigger, and held the trigger. The two different drill portions of the lance started to spin to an even faster speed, gold energy crackling around the weapon. The various vent ports all over Applejack’s armor opened up at once, glowing with internal golden light. When it seemed like her whole body was one gold corona, Applejack shouted, “Drill of Truth!”
All of the ports on her armor fired at once, creating a combined jet stream behind Applejack that thrust her forward with insane force and speed, while the drill lance flared up with so much spiritual energy that it essentially became a wide, conical drill of pure golden light.
Sunset waited until the very last millisecond, doing all she could to keep Gaia from dodging before having to move out of the way of Applejack’s rampaging attack. The shear force of the farmgirl’s charge created a conical shock wave that snapped many of the dozen meter thick branches around them. Gaia used both of her back thorns and the front of her double-blade to try and block Applejack’s advance, but even with all of her strength she found that Applejack’s attack was nothing to sneeze at. Gaia was driving right back into the tree’s massive trunk, and then was literally drilled into it. Sunset watched in amazement as Applejack continued to drive Gaia through the trunk of her own tree, digging the Arrancar hybrid through the entire thickness of the colossal tree under a torrent of drilling spiritual force and energies.
The pair burst out the other side, leaving a drilled hole nearly ten meters wide through the tree’s full width.
Bursting out the other side, Gaia was sent flying. The shards of her double-blade flew around her, the weapon smashed fully in half. Her right shoulder also bore a deep hole from the last energies of the Drill of Truth managing to deliver a decent wound before the attack petered out.
Coughing, Gaia flipped in the air and grinded to a halt, breathing heavily. Twice now these girls had caused her a serious injury! She looked at the broken second half of her double-blade and growled, tossing it aside. She didn’t need it anyway.
Applejack was also breathing heavily, having used up a lot of her remaining reiatsu with that attack. Combined with the injuries from fighting her father, and she didn’t have much left to give. Which was why when Gaia retaliate with the charged up Cero she’d yet to discharge, Applejack couldn’t dodge as the massive purple and green beam came swirling in at her.
Fortunately for Applejack she had a friend to whom the laws of physics were, at times, only a loose set of suggestions. A hole in space, rimmed with blue, appeared in the air next to Applejack, opened up, and pink hands grabbed the girl and yanked her in just before the Cero would have consumed her. Applejack was left feeling a distinct sense of unbelievable vertigo, her eyes seeing a swirl of so many chaotic colors as to stab a headache into the logic centers of her mind, then she found herself pulled out another hole in space, this one rimmed in orange energy, in the air to face Pinkamena who was smirking at her as she held some kind of weird looking white plastic gun. They were back on top of the tree, where Fluttershy was using her golden hands to rapidly try and heal Rainbow Dash and Twilight’s wounds, and even help Rarity, who was now pale and sweating from the poison she’d been trying to contain.
“Bwhuh?” Applejack said, and Pinkamena patted her shoulder.
“Just yanked you through a portal. Don’t think about it too hard,” Pinkamena said, tossing the strange looking white gun device aside and booting it off the tree, “Pinkie Pie’s better at this stuff, but it’s fun sometimes, I guess.”
“Felt the whole tree shake,” Rainbow Dash said, wincing in pain as she clutched her wound, which was slowly closing from Fluttershy’s ministrations, “Was that you, AJ? Felt your spirit energy go way up for a second.”
“Yeah,” Applejack said, turning towards where she felt Gaia’s reiatsu, “Got a solid hit in, but that dang Gaia just won’t go down.”
“Mmmph,” Twilight groaned, regaining consciousness and slowly raising her head, “Have we won yet?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Gaia roared, flying up the side of the tree and rising into the air above the group, “YOU TELL ME! DO I LOOK BEATEN YET!?”
“Uh-oh,” Pinkie Pie said as she resumed control of her body, “She’s using all caps! That means she’s serious!”
“PInkie Pie, please, not now,” Rarity said, making a gesture with her sword and directing the bulk of her knights to start charging towards Gaia, if only to hopefully occupy the woman long enough for Fluttershy’s healing to have a few more moments of affect.
The knights had largely been keeping the tree monsters at bay, but the archers and cannons were still free to open fire while the faster, stronger pegasus knights were able to charge Gaia in flashing red streaks. Even as blood red crystal arrows slammed into her and bursting cannon shells exploded in flares of crimson light around her, Gaia barreled straight into Rarity’s knights with her long claws slashing wildly while trailing streaks of emerald magic. Her rose vines and the thorns upon her back lunged about her, impaling crystalline knights left and right. Several of the knights did still strike her, their spears, axes, hammers, and blades sparking upon her Hierro hardened skin. Under Rarity’s keen minded direction the knights aimed for Gaia’s already open wounds next, but by now Gaia had flown into the center of the mass of knights, and crossing her arms in front of her she gathered both spiritual and magical power which she then expelled around her in a massive spherical wave that sent everything around her flying, leaving countless of the knight constructs in broken pieces.
By then Sunset had flown back up and rejoined her friends, and Twilight had managed to stand back up, while Rainbow Dash’s wound and the poison weakening Rarity had been mostly dealt with by Fluttershy.
Sunset looked at her tired, wounded friends, then looked at the equally wounded and tiring Gaia. It was hard to tell who was winning this fight. It was coming down to the wire.
Looking at Hokori in her right hand, and Hikari in her left, she thought to herself, I’ve only got one trick left, myself, and it’s not even suited for what I need here... but maybe...
The entire time Gaia had been drawing more and more magic out of the geodes embedded in her. Trying to reach Gloriosa’s personality had merit, but unless Twilight and Fluttershy got a chance to use their power simultaneously, Sunset wasn’t sure that would work. They needed to cut Gaia off from the source of her power. They needed to remove those geodes and get through to Gloriosa at the same time. And if they couldn’t remove the geodes, then the only other choice might be to destroy them.
And she suspected that in order to pull that off, they might need an extra bit of personal ‘omph’ to force Gloriosa to confront what was happening. They needed Timber Spruce.
“Guys, one of us needs to go grab her brother,” she said, and Twilight glanced at her.
“I can do that. I think Clover is still down there somewhere trying to help him. But what are you planning, Sunset?”
“Forcing Gloriosa to face the truth, before she ends up destroying everything around her.”
“Thinkin’ it’s gettin’ close ta too late fer that,” Applejack said, pointing with her lance at Gaia, who had floated up higher into the sky. Rarity’s knights had continued to fire arrows and cannon shots at her, but Gaia had surrounded herself with a thick magical aura that was now absorbing much of the damage. Indeed it felt like Gaia was opening the floodgates on the geodes, surging torrents of multi-colored magical light, all tinged with darkness, emanating fro her in a waterfall.
“What’s she up to now?” Dash said, and then all the girls looked below them as the entire tree began to rumble and shake.
The shaking grew in intensity, and the handful of remaining tree monsters that had still not been destroyed ceased moving, and merged back into the tree.
Pinkie Pie’s hair suddenly stood on poofy end and her whole body went through a seizure-like quaking, ending with wide eyes as she said, “Girls! Girls! I think the boss is starting up with the third stage! Giant form incoming!”
“Giant form? Pinkie, could ya start makin’ sense?” Applejack said, but then all of the girls were forced to dodge aside as the tree abruptly grew a gigantic arm as large as a skyscraper that moved around and smashed into the spot where they’d been standing.
The girls continued to either fly or step across the air, getting distance from the tree as its branches morphed together into more limbs and it’s upper boughs cracked apart and then bunched back together, melding into the newly crafted shape of a humongous V-shaped torso upon which knobby swirls of root systems created sharp protrusions like spiked armor. A colossal head formed, with leaves and branches forming a mane and roots sharpened to spear points forming massive teeth. Thorns like jagged dorsal plates formed across the back and horns of wood curled around a broad, demonic head that held two glowing pits of green flame for eyes.
Gaia floated down to land on the head of this new construct, the entire upper fifty meters of tree having transmuted into a gargantuan, four limbed, spike covered monstrosity. The tree colossus let out a howl that hit with the force of a typhoon, echoing Gaia’s mad laughter as she resumed her attack upon the beleaguered defenders of Canterlot City.
----------
Deep beneath the bottom roots of the tree that hung over the dry lakebed, Clover had found Timber Spruce. The tree’s living bark and roots had pulled the bulbous cocoon of leaves and resin containing the frightened Timber and brought him to the very center point beneath the tree.
“What’s going on?” Timber said weakly, trying to pull vines from his skin but feeling his body weakening by the second, “I don’t understand any of this! What’s happened to Glori?”
Clover didn’t even know how to begin answering the young man’s questions. She was concerned over the simple fact that he could so readily see her to even ask those questions. To her knowledge Timber Spruce held not spiritual powers, so his ability to see her was odd, but it might have had something to do with the energy she had sensed the tree pumping into him through those vines.
“Your sister isn’t well, but my friends are trying to help her. Just like I’m trying to help you right now.”
“I’ll... take any help I can get right now...ugh...” Timber’s face twisted in a pained grimace as blood flowed from his arm as he yanked a vine out, “Ah! Feel like I’m burning up inside.”
“Your sister was trying to heal your wounds, but there’s something else happening,” Clover said, hesitant to just start trying to pull him free. She needed to know that wouldn’t do irreparable harm before acting. However, if what she was sensing from above was any indication, they didn’t have a lot of time. Sunset and the girls were putting up quite the fight, but Gaia was proving their match.
Clover would have loved to have Chishiki to analyze the cocoon with, but she now just had to rely on her spiritual senses to get the job done. Focusing her senses, she tried to parse out just how safe it might be to try and pull Timber free. However it didn’t take her long to notice something else strange going on nearby, and her attention was drawn downward.
Looking down, her eyes widened, and she said, “Oh.”
“Oh? That didn’t sound like a good ‘oh’,” Timber said, trying to angle himself in the cocoon to look down as well, “What are we ‘oh’ing at?”
Then he saw it too, and also said, “...Oh.”
Embedded in the rocky rubble of the lakebed that had been formed from the tree erupting up from below the earth was the remains of a stone statue. It was barely recognizable now, with only some of the bronze plate with the words ‘Canterlot High School’ left on the otherwise smashed up and damaged statue that contained the portal to Equestria.
And a swirling miasma of unstable magic now pulsated around the broken statue, and the root system beneath the tree. At the center of the wavering aura of unstable magic was an open portal, one that was widening in slow fits and starts, and one that was crackling with power ready to explode.
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I figured out that she was using the variable to alter who was the Dominant personality before it was explicitly stated!
Yeah destroying the Geodes is NOT an option, they're going to need them if they're going to fix the Portal and stop what will almost certainly be a cataclysmic event from happening.
If the portal is undergoing all these fluctuations and, with its physical medium now destroyed, surely that must be having some kind of effect on the Equestrian side as well. More specifically on the seal placed there by Bount Trixie. I find it hard to believe all this could happen to it on this end and have no effect on the other end.
And wow, Glory designed Central 46's system to be fundamentally broken, likely in an effort to prevent the Gotei 13 from even actually winning the war and realising what she was up to in the palace. Bi
ch is using them as meat shields and they just have to go along with it. 
Can't wait to see how the fight concludes, but I kind of hope they can force some sense into Gaia and she can become an ally and remain with Gloriosa. Mostly just 'cause I want to see her when she gets all her old powers back, especially if what she's got now isn't "quite on that level" like she stated last chapter.
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(well, Quincy with added magic)
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Ok, I guess my brain lied to me again. Though I guess Midnight could be the magic equivalent of a fullbring. 🤔
How do you find so much epic fight music? This time it fit the tone and pacing so well, I am impressed.
Random thought: Do Rarity's knights get more powerful or skilled with each battle, and would they need to survive to do so? Something like that might have been mentioned, idk.
They handling the battle pretty well, even after their fights but they'll need an edge to win. Wonder how the Geodes plot will be solved. They seem like a great game-changer.
Awww:
AWWW
Speaking the obvious, but Pinkie's just hilarious. Got few good laughs in this chapter.
Magical dimensional portal is gearing up like a bomb....That’s not good at all.
My thoughts on this chapter.
1) Nice intro.
2) HOLY HELL that's a crazy boss fight! Just what will it take to beat her!?
3) Uh-oh...
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Ya think!? It’ll, at best, rip a hole to somewhere. At worst, it’ll it rip a hole to nowhere. As in, a void, creating a suction effect