Episode 155: Back Against the Wall
Episode 155: Back Against the Wall
Despite things not going according to plan, Celestia still felt in control. Discord being taken was an issue, but not a wholly unforeseen one. She was worried about his health, but was equally aware the draconequus was not so easily killed, even with his magic being suppressed. He’d live, and Celestia had gauged Starlight Glimmer was not one out to needlessly take lives, so chances were provisions had been made to keep Discord breathing for the immediate future. More importantly, in the event that either of them would end up captured, Celestia had ensured both she and Discord had a means to be tracked. Granted that means did rely on magic, but Celestia trusted that Discord, wily as he was, would find a way to overcome that particular issue with the magic inside him being rendered inert.
And if all went well here then perhaps that wouldn’t even be necessary, for Celestia could just beat the location of their hideout from Starlight Glimmer herself, arrogant mortal mare that she was-
Celestia shut that thought down the second it creeped into her skull. She’d expected to have to deal with elements of Eos’ personality and memories, just as Luna had fought and fell against the overwhelming mental torrent of Iah’s that had resulted in the formation of Nightmare Moon. But Luna had failed only because she’d used two Relics at once, releasing too much of the former “goddess” alicorn’s powers and memory. Conversely, Celestia had believed using just one Relic of Eos’ would make things easier to control.
She’d been mistaken, but she couldn’t be quite sure what had gone wrong. This was too much. Too much power, too much memory, all in greater portions than the single Relic should have contained. Eos and Iah had been among the original alicorn race’s greatest and most potent members of the Highest Dominion that had ruled over the rest of their kind alongside a very small council of others of like power. When Eos and her Preservers had been defeated and the ruined world left on the brink, the Inheritor Project had been conceived to start repairing the damage and force the alicorn race to give up its godly “divine” magic in favor of living mortal lives. Eos, along with several of her most devout followers, had needed to be coerced into performing the ritual to invest their power into Relics, and Eos herself, like her sister, had needed to use multiple Relics to divide their power evenly.
A single of Eos’ three Relics should have been strong enough to give Celestia a decisive edge over Starlight Glimmer, but not such an overwhelming one. As it stood, Celestia felt like the very molecules of her flesh were transcending mortal form, searing with the raw power of light, of the sun, of the essence of Day itself that Eos had presided over. That molten, cosmic power ripped through her very being, threatening to dismantle her from the inside out if she didn’t keep a grip of unbreakable, golden will upon it. It was like mentally trying to surf on a tidal wave on the surface of the sun. With that sensation came the ever rising voice of a mare that sounded like Celestia, but was deridingly not Celestia.
“Do not resist, child. You are a chalice made of mere flesh, your soul a drop of blood of the being that is Eos. Render unto me your existence, and I shall right this realm you sought to rule, not as a Princess, but as a Goddess. Remove these stained gnats that challenge us. Purge all threats, and restore what should never have been broken; the rule of the Gods.”
From the moment she’d released the power of the Relic that voice had burned through every corner of her mind and soul, spreading tendrils of scorching memory into Celestia’s thoughts. She could remember with such clarity the blindingly beautiful sights of the Divine Sanctuary, Bastion Altum Solium, with its towers of achingly pure white that tore into the heavens themselves. She could remember the earliest days of life in Equestria, where the alicorns, first among races, came into being from the depths of the Astral Sea, born of the essence of magic itself. To grow in such times, to preside over the rise of countless other races and spirits, to see “Equestria'' not as a nation of mere ponies, but as a hauntingly familiar yet expansive world of endless wonders upon which the alicorns stood at the top as custodians, beloved guardians, and yes... eventually worshiped as gods.
She could all but nearly cry at Eos’ memories of walking among the mortals, of soaring churches whose golden statues and silver bells pierced all with their beauty. Of choir songs of the devoted, filling her with love and grace as she looked down upon blissful mortal faces she would bestow her blessings upon, allowing the glory of Day to bathe all in its tender light. She even remembered fondly enjoying her sister’s domain of Night, tiredly but happily walking beside Iah as she swam through the dreams of her nightly congregation, the realm of slumber forming a unique church all its own.
And she remembered the sundering that would come. The weakening of magic, the discovery of fewer and fewer born alicorns with each passing century, and the Ordo Knowledge’s discovery of the damage being done to the Cycle. Such rage at the notion that they were at fault!? That the proper order of mortals and gods was somehow to blame for the slow, creeping doom that threatened their world? And to think that Iah and her damned rebels would think to strip them of everything that made the alicorn race what it was!? Why not find a better solution, one that would preserve the rightful order? Surely there was a way? But no, the rebels had wasted their efforts in war, forcing Eos and her loyal Preservers to fight back, to protect what was right and just in the world!
A world that burned in divine flame from that war, and a defeated, broken Eos had but one recourse. Patience. Deceit.
In that flood of memory Celestia knew what Eos had done, although not wholly how she had done it. Of the three Relics she had been forced to make, Eos had faked two of them, using elaborate illusions to make the Relics appear as if they held equal portions of her power. But in truth, she had not made the split even between the three, investing a larger portion of power and most of her memory into just one Relic, the sword that was broken, her beloved Caelum Carnifex (Heaven’s Executioner). She hadn’t been able to invested much more power than in the other two, simply because the illusion would not have worked if not enough power had been present to made it hold up under inspection, but enough extra divine magic had gone into the sword that, in combination with all of her memories, Eos had hoped would be enough to overwhelm whoever dared to “inherit” her power.
Yet Eos had not counted on contending with a mind and will like Celestia’s. Dismissive of mortals, she’d assumed whomever tried to unleash her trapped Relic would be no match and easily overcome by her mind. Celestia, as it happened, was made of far sterner stuff than Eos had predicted, leading to an internal stalemate in which Celestia’ remained in control, even as bits and pieces of Eos’ personality leaked out.
Pieces that were all for eradicating Starlight Glimmer and Chrysalis in short order, although upon looking at Chrysalis, Eos’ mind and memories rose up in particular recognition, causing Celestia to briefly pause in her advance upon the pair as they stood in the center of Ponehenge.
“I sense your soul, Laverna. How pitiful you look now, cowering so. At least when you served my sister you had the backbone to face me without flinching, even if you and your whole brood of thieving wretches were no match.”
Chrysalis did indeed flinch, fanged lips twisting in a confused glower, “I have no idea what you’re on about, but don’t think I’ll just roll over for you, Celestia.”
Celestia shook herself, remembering who she was and asserting control again, pushing Eos’ scornful mind back.
“Of course you don’t know,” she told Chrysalis, “And it is for the better that you don’t. Surrender now, and I can guarantee your life. A life locked away in Tartarus, perhaps, but better than you should expect if you fail to stand down.”
For a moment Chrysalis almost looked tempted, as if she fully understood how outclassed she was right now, and the coward within wanted nothing to do with such an uneven fight. Yet somewhere, somehow, it seemed the changeling Queen was finding some spine, for she planted herself firmly and set her wings to buzzing in anger, “You’d like that wouldn’t you? To have me grovel at your hooves, begging for my life?”
Destroy this worthless knave. The voice of Eos scraped at Celestia’s mind A self-absorbed coward and thief both now as she was then, ever crawling in the shadows. No wonder she got along with Iah so well.
Wrangling the spiteful feelings was not easy, as they did somewhat line up with Celestia’s own low opinion of Chrysalis, and after so many years of dealing with the changeling Queen as a threat to her nation and people Celestia was sorely tempted to make use of this opportunity to put an end to this long-standing foe once and for all. The only thing remotely holding back that wrath was that Celestia wanted a clear mind for such a decision and didn’t want Eos poisoning the well of her reasoning. If Chrysalis was to die by Celestia’s hoof, it would be a choice made in complete control and knowledge of the necessity, not because the memories of a long gone, megalomaniacal alicorn with delusions of godhood had tainted Celestia’s thoughts.
“I could not care less for you to grovel, Chrysalis. Take what little mercy I have a mind to spare for you, or suffer the full consequences your poor choices have led you to, but decide quickly. I’m out of patience.”
With that, she decided it was time to close the curtain on this battle. She took hold of Caelum Carnifex in an almighty grip of sunborn magic, raising the humongous blade of neigh indestructible white metal upwards amidst a surge of unmitigated golden fire that flowed freely from her in an aura of land shaking magic and spiritual power. She gazed at Starlight Glimmer, who’d remained silent and in a prepared stance for combat, and Chrysalis, who looked increasingly unsure of her supposed bravery, and Celestia spoke one last time before blades would be joined, “If you would not die this day, lower your weapons. If you wish to fight the Sun, then she stands before you, unbowed and unbroken. Now... chose!”
She went at them both, in a massive sideways sweep of her blade that emitted a titanic fan of raw force and blinding sunfire, Celestia herself nothing but a searing streak of light as she charged between the middle of her two foes.
Chrysalis had no means to dodge, but one could never claim the changeling lacked for survival instincts. Emerald fire poured across her and even as Celestia’s stroke seared a wave of sunflame across her, Chrysalis was sent flying back into one of Ponehenge’s pillars. Space crackled around the pillar. If it had been a normal monument of stone it would have shattered into dust from the impact, but the magic around it that bound the pillars to their purpose kept it intact as Chrysalis hit it. As for Chrysalis herself, she was alive, if only because she’d converted her body into solid adamantine to absorb the blow, a metal both close to indestructible, and exceedingly heat resistant. Of course ‘indestructible’ was a relative term in this case, as the incredible power and heat from even the glancing blow was enough to sear a red mark across Chrysalis' flank, despite the metallic body she’d adopted. She was injured but still mobile, and tried to reach for the one remaining anti-magic javelin that had been forged, which she had dropped upon impact with the pillar. However, Celestia’s attack had not only targeted Chrysalis and Starlight, but had directed some of its burning energies towards the ground around the javelin itself. Although made of a metal that disrupted all magic around it, the metal itself was not immune to being melted, and its anti-magic field did not extend far beyond the metal itself. As such when the ground beneath it was turned molten by the heat of Celestia’s attack, it in turn melted the javelin as easily as if it were common iron.
Meanwhile Starlight fared better than Chrysalis against their empowered foe, but not by much. Her saving grace was the Zanpaktou she held, Yaban’na Megumi (Feral Grace). Once in the hands of Ditzy Doo, it was a Zanpaktou of deadly potency, capable of tearing through space itself with every motion of the estoc’s long, pointed blade. In fact, in Ditzy Doo’s heyday, her Zanpaktou was known as the sharpest in Soul Society. Not the most powerful, per se, not the “strongest” in the general sense of the term, but no sword was considered more keen, more capable of cutting the way Yaban’na Megumi could. It was as if every inch of its metal length was wrapped in a spiritual power so finely tuned to rip through all it touched that be it steel, flesh, air, or even the fabric holding together reality, all was equally parted by its gleaming edge.
As such, Starlight had the fortune to not have to entirely dodge Celestia’s strike, but rather cleave the air around her and shred into space itself, forming a ribbon of torn reality that even the almighty conflagration of flame could not entirely bypass. That wasn’t to say residual power from the blow didn’t still force Starlight to Flash Step away, only that the rips in reality she could make bought her precious fractions of a second to do so. It also allowed her to try and counter Celestia’s attack with one of her own, for every strike of Yaban’na Megumi could also instantly transfer the blade’s presence to any other space either in the user’s line of sight or even locations they were familiar with. Well, within limited reason. It couldn’t move between different planes, so one couldn’t shift from Soul Society to the living world with it, just locations on the same plane, and even then there was a range limit of perhaps twenty miles.
Useful for getting around a city you knew well, not so much for escaping a flaming sun alicorn in an unfamiliar wilderness.
Starlight stabbed the air with the Zanpaktou, creating hundreds of thrusts that punctured holes in reality and transferred those stabs to several dozen locations around Celestia, trying to trap the alicorn. Yet Celestia moved through the storm of spatial stabbings like a ballet dancer going through a casual routine, golden light trailing her wake as she didn’t so much teleport as just move with light’s gentle ease through the rain of blows.
Starlight redoubled her efforts, switching to a series of dimension ripping slashes that created a storm of spatial cuts that cleaved in at Celestia from all conceivable angles. Yet when she didn’t dodge, Celestia used her shining blade to deflect that keenest of edges. Starlight felt the significant impact of Yaban’na Megumi with Celestia’s blade of white steel, and each clash caused the air itself to groan with the conflict of entwining energies. To Ditzy’s Zanpaktou’s credit the spatial tears it forged were of such potency that even Celestia’s impressive sword could not break them, and it did force Celestia to evade more often that parry. Indeed, the one or two times Starlight’s strikes made glancing blows she could see the dimensional edge of Yaban’na Megumi could leave marks on Celestia’s armor... but only marks. Celestia was just too fast, skilled, and strong at this point to allow a more telling blow, and Starlight couldn’t be sure that even if she did get a solid hit in how much damage it’d actually do.
Furthermore, each time the Zanpaktou and magical sun forged blade collided, Starlight felt the Hogyoku pulsate slightly. The orb in her chest had been absorbing ambient magic from Celestia the entire fight, but it was as if the Hogyoku now almost... recognized something familiar in the air. Was the spiritual energy that Celestia was outputting now? The Hogyoku might be able to absorb magical energy, but it was originally designed to work more naturally with spirit energy. Given that Celestia was now providing an outpour of reiatsu, was the Hogyoku attuning itself even faster to this new transformation’s energies?
Possibly, but Starlight had a strange feeling that there was something else at play. Not that she had time to contemplate this.
Celestia responded to Starlight’s assault with a simple flick of her horn, a flash of light casting out a swarm of flickering golden drops of light. Starlight sensed the incredible power within those seeming tiny fireflies of light and cut behind her, creating a hole in space to throw herself through just as the glittering swarm exploded in a destructive swath of miniature suns. She gasped as even as she appeared a hundred meters away, more swarming sun blasts came after her like angry hornets, bursting in melting swaths of perfectly spherical balls of all consuming heat. Each one was like watching a tiny sun appear for an instant to melt away all around it, leaving perfectly circular divots in the ground of utterly glassed dirt.
And Celestia was throwing these from her horn like some other unicorn might have lifted a household appliance.
Chrysalis, letting out a grunt of pain from her wound, turned eyes dripping rancor at the shining alicorn while Celestia’s focus was upon Starlight and drew back her right foreleg, where her Bakkoto hummed to life with a combination of flickering changeling magic and fresh spiritual energy. Like a organic creature, the gauntlet's metal and blades writhed and pulsed like flesh as intense green light spilled through it in patterns of blood veins, channeling Chrysalis' magic and recently awakened spiritual pressure. While Starlight was nearly running on empty, Chrysalis at least was still near full strength, and spared none of her topped off power as she swung her weapon forward.
The segmented chain blades shot, emerald changeling magic flowing along them as the blades transformed. Chrysalis’ Bakkoto had adapted itself to work with her changeling powers, able to act as a living extension of that same power. Of the nine chain blades that shout towards Celestia, each changed into a different form of venomous extension. One gained hundreds of gigantic replicas of spider’s fangs, while another writhed with the heads of lethal serpents, while yet another turned into the writhing mass of scorpion tails, and another the endless colorful tendrils of some deep sea jellyfish. A drop of venom from any one of those transformed blades would be enough to kill a hundred ponies at once, and the combined toxic mass was the kind of thing that would slaughter even a full grown dragon.
Celesita didn’t even look back at the oncoming rush of poisonous death. Her blinding sword of sun forged might cut back in another burning display of power, sending a burning shockwave out that not only deflected the Bakkoto’s blades, but forced Chrysalis to take cover behind one of Ponehenge's pillars, lest her skin burn off her body.
Chrysalis then noticed even more heat building up above her, and looked up with wide eyes as several rings of light took shape in the air above her. These were the rings from Celestia’s right wing, which had flown up above where Chrysalis had taken cover. The changeling queen had to transform herself into the fastest creature she knew of, a Lightning Bird. Normally beautiful avians of azure blue plumage that was forged of raw lightning, Chrysalis’ version was more a darker indigo, but the resultant form still moved just as fast if not faster than the real deal, tracing a zipping path of lighting sparks away from Ponehenge as the light rings fired raw beams of solid sunfire that burned through the spot Chrysalis had occupied a second earlier.
Starlight Glimmer, heavily focused upon just trying to stay alive herself, still took note of something odd about the situation. She couldn’t be certain, so to experiment, she adjusted her evasive course and used Yaban’na Megumi to cut a hole back to the center of Ponehenge, rushing through it. Appearing through the torn portal right in Ponehenge’s center, she shoved a bleeding palm towards Celestia and at the same time stabbed with her Zanpaktou into the growing sphere of Hollow power she was forming in her hand.
“Gran Rey Cero!”
With a portal being torn open within the Cero beam’s gathering sphere, she ripped open multiple portals around Celestia and sent the same beam, spatially bent through each portal, to converge on the alicorn from multiple sides.
She didn’t expect this to do much damage to Celestia, but Starlight was checking Celestia’s response.
It was swift and forceful, for Celestia did not try to dodge the multiple Gran Rey Cero beams that slammed towards her, but instead used the other three rings of light she had from her other wing to send them spinning out in a dizzying pattern of ethereal power. The beams of Hollow energy were sliced through, a feat that surprised even Starlight. She knew her single Gran Rey Cero was technically diluted in power through the portal, but still, Celestia cutting the beams down with such ease was shocking. Those light rings weren’t normal, she could sense. They weren’t simple manifestations of magic. There was spiritual power there as well, and at a far greater density than in other parts of Celestia’s new regalia.
They’re like her sword... a focused extension of her power. It’s almost like a Zanpaktou itself, the rings and blade connected.
That thought was interrupted by Starlight sensing another grip of telekinetic force upon her body as Celestia gave her a hard look.
“You no longer have the power to fight back, so why do you not simply give up, Starlight Glimmer? Your cause has become beyond hopeless.”
Starlight sought to move, shoving back with her spiritual pressure to resist the telekinesis wreathing her body. It helped some, but it also slowed her subsequent Flash Step and she barely kept sight of Celestia as the alicorn vanished from view and reappeared next to her. The next thing Starlight knew she was feeling a metal shod hoof impact with her stomach with earth shattering force and felt herself spin through the air, breaking the sound barrier as she sailed upwards. She only just managed to right herself before Celestia was right in her face again, this time bringing down her shining sword in an overhead chop. Starlight was able to impose her Zanpaktou by scant milliseconds, but the impact, added to by an explosion of raw heat and light energy, seared at Starlight’s body and sent her flying back down so fast and hard she was already cratering dozens of meters into the ground before she’d taken half a blink.
Gasping and coughing, she struggled to her hooves, tasting blood as she spat up a blob of red to the broken ground. In her chest, the Hogyoku pulsed once again, this time sparking and flaring with a small flame of white sunfire before it died back down. It had absorbed yet more of Celestia’s magic and spiritual power, but nowhere near enough to do much. Even so, Starlight had sensed another spark of the familiar when Celestia’s blade had clashed with her Zanpaktou.
Or rather, it was as if the Hogyoku recognized something more than Starlight did.
She felt Celestia’s presence as the alicorn slammed to the ground nearby. The alicorn wasn’t even paying Chrysalis any mind, her other three light rings chasing the changeling’s Lightning Bird firm with a series of sun beams that Chrysalis was only barely keeping ahead of. Starlight suspected that was by Celestia’s intent, for Chrysalis wasn’t moving fast enough to actually outmaneuver what she suspected those light rings could actually move at. Instead it looked more like what Starlight had already guessed earlier.
She’s keeping us away from Ponehenge itself. Every attack she’s made has been designed to drive us away from the monument. But why?
It had bugged Starlight from the start that Celestia had chosen this location. Her assumption was that Ponehenge was some kind of place of power for magic, perhaps useful for amplifying magical energies. Yet that didn’t track, not totally. Celestia had proven she had different trump cards for the purpose of power, so then why was Ponehenge important?
She probed it with her senses, both magic and spiritual. There was a lot of energy hanging in the air, and Ponehenge itself was no exception. Starlight hadn’t quite looked at the shape of that power, but now she was starting to see it. The tears in reality made by Yaban’na Megumi didn’t just fade away after a few seconds. They lingered. But they shouldn’t have. By the way Starlight understood the Zanpaktou’s power, the rips usually closed up swiftly after being made, unless the blade’s wielder willed them to stay open longer. But Starlight hadn’t been doing that. Yet now that she looked, and felt with her senses, those tears were all still present.
Or at least, they were present in the immediate vicinity of Ponehenge itself. And through them, Starlight sensed something else... that within Ponehenge was a vast space, a distortion in reality that was like a massive gateway. Or prison.
“Why do you keep standing back up?” Celestia said, and moved in a burst of light. Starlight tried to parry this time, but she was slower than ever, and felt a searing cut through her flesh as Celestia appeared on the other side of her. Blood poured from a wide slice that crossed over Starlight’s shoulder and all but rendered her front right leg useless.
Still, Starlight forced herself to keep standing and turned around, slicing with her Zanpaktou in a wide arc at Celestia, although the alicorn blocked it with relative ease. Yaban’na Megumi cut space, sending a distortion of torn reality at the alicorn at nearly instantaneous speed, but Celestia was able to just as instantly teleport away from the attack and retaliate with a casual spinning axe kick that carried with it a flaming ball of sunfire that exploded upon Starlight with punishing force and left her twitching on the melted ground.
Groaning, Starlight cracked her eyes open and shoved herself upwards, which only seemed to incite Celestia’s fervor, the alicorn’s wings spreading wide and raw sunlight pouring from her eyes as her voice boomed.
“What must be done to force you to stay down? When you are naught but cinders? You know my power exceeds yours, Starlight Glimmer, so why persist in fighting?”
“Y-you... think I’d give up just... because you’re stronger than me?” Starlight coughed up more blood, but still cracked a red stained smile, “If stronger opponents were enough to scare me, I’d never have... started this path in the first damned place!”
She punctuated her defiant shout with another Gran Rey Cero that formed around her bloodied lips, and was discharged at a slightly lowered angle so it tore apart the ground in a wide, destructive path as it cut towards Celestia. In the same instance she sliced through the Cero beam with her Zanpaktou, causing Yaban’na Megumi to send out a rippling tear through space that was hidden within the Gran Rey Cero.
As she figured would be the case, Celestia easily parted the Gran Rey Cero with an upward swing of her sword, generating a sunfire shockwave that tore through the atmosphere in a blazing arc. However this meant that the sword was out of place to block when the hidden spatial rip appeared from the deflected Cero and stabbed towards Celestia’s chest.
With a flash of concentration in her eyes, Celestia side stepped in a burst of light speed, the rip in space tracing a slight cut across her armored wing, but doing little more than scrapping of a single pinion.
“Foolish! So utterly foolish,” Celestia sighed, and a storm of feathers made of explosive light shout of her wings and landed around Starlight in a halo of blinding flashes. Starlight was battered around like a pinball by the blasts of light, her own alicorn wings searing and losing their feathers, her fur scorched, and her barely reformed Hollow mask cracking off once more as she landed in a smoking heap on the ground once more.
Letting out a long, low groan, she flopped over onto her belly and planted one hoof, then another, rising slowly in front of an ever more frustrated looking Celestia.
“Y-yeah... foolish... been described that way plenty of times before. Since you’re... so chatty, what’s with the spiritual power? You’re the first one I’ve felt sport any serious, weapons grade reiatsu. Why?”
Starlight, one eye now caked and burned shut by injury, fixed her remaining good one upon Celestia with a heated question, “Why does the Hogyoku find your reiatsu so familiar, Eos?”
Before she could receive an answer a roar from above briefly drew both Celestia and Starlight’s attention. Chrysalis’ Lightning Bird form had been replaced, the changeling having taken advantage of Celestia’s focus to speed up and then transform when she was just a few dozen meters away. The dark indigo bird of lightning energy was replaced in a flash by a humongous form; that of a black scaled, four horned dragon with wings wide enough to cast all of Ponehenge in shadow. Chrysalis' Bakkoto changed form with its owner, merging into a organic, scaled form upon her right arm, and its nine bladed chains reared up and transformed into multi-colored dragon heads that took up formation around Chrysalis' central head.
From the maws of the now many dragons’ mouths, a tsunami flooded forth. Each head belched forth a different energy, be it fire or ice, lighting or acid, caustic darkness or searing light, the storm of different energies from the dragon heads combined into a singular wave that crashed into Celestia with all the force of a natural disaster.
As far as attacks went, it was about as effective as Chrysalis could muster in combining the ability she had as a changeling whilst also taking advantage of her Bakkoto’s power to do the same. Certainly few actual dragons would have withstood a combined breath attack from ten different sources of draconic power, perfectly mimed by a changeling still hopped up on a hefty dose of pure love.
But Celestia was not a dragon. Indeed what she was currently well exceeded any modern dragon’s power. The blast of draconic breaths certainly tore apart a great chunk of the area, and pushed up against the barrier dome that Celestia had placed around the battlefield. However by the time the storm of energies faded, Celestia remained standing, her metallic body of gold and light barely showing a scuff for Chrysalis’ efforts.
“Had you done that earlier, it might have hurt somewhat,” Celestia said, “But you really should have surrendered, Chrysalis.”
The three light rings that she’d sent after the changeling now appeared around Chrysalis’ draconic form, and in swift motions encircled her and tightened like vices. They bound the dragon up tightly, searing into Chrysalis’ scales and eliciting a roar of pain. Chrysalis fell to the ground in a crash, and emerald fire burst from her as she shifted form to escape the rings.
Celestia blinked, as she didn’t immediately see where Chrysalis went. Whatever form the changeling had now taken must have been a rather small one.
“Trying to hide? Still a coward, for all your posturing, Laverna.”
Celestia flinched at her own words and shook her head. Starlight, seeing an opportunity, forced herself to speak, despite even that simple act causing pain now.
“What’s wrong Celestia? Or is it Eos now? You seem like you’re having trouble keeping it straight.”
“I know full well who I am,” Celestia replied, now summoning back all six of the light rings around her wings, which then turned horizontal to aim like lenses at Starlight, “Preserver of the realm, both sword and shield of mortalkind.”
“Mortalkind? Are you even listening to yourself?” Starlight coughed out a blood-stained laugh, “Sounds more like you’re losing yourself, Celestia. Tapped into a power with a few more strings attached than you were ready for. Heh, I can relate. So you going to answer my other question or what? Where’d all this spiritual power come from?”
It was clear her words were getting to Celestia, from the slightly quickened breath on the other alicorn and the increased flickering in the incandescent light of her flaming tail and mane. Celestia’s voice remained solid as ever, however, as she said, “Our worlds mirror each other in many ways, yet remain divergent in just as many more. In your realm, magic is unknown, yet not nonexistent. So too here, is spiritual power unknown, yet exists. The providence of those who took the mantle of deities upon themselves. The original race of alicorns, who mastered magic, and tapped into the power of the soul as well.”
Starlight, focusing as much on breathing and regaining some small shred of endurance as she was on the conversational lull in the fight, said, “I’m starting to get it. Our worlds aren’t as separate as I thought, especially way back in ancient history. Got a hunch the reason the Hogyoku is responding to you is because your power right now is the same kind of magic and spirit fusion Sunset Shimmer and her gang are hooked up with, which the Hogyoku is designed to create and empower...”
As she spoke, Starlight lowered her Zanpaktou, making it look like she was simply losing her grip of magic upon the blade. Her words did cause Celestia to briefly hesitate. Inside Celestia’s mind she was keeping back an entire flood of rising memories from Eos, who was seizing upon the cracks of hesitance Starlight’s words were causing to seek to gain control. The internal battle for her own sense of self was as a result forcing Celestia to split her focus between too many different areas. As a result she didn’t respond fast enough to Starlight using Yaban’na Megumi to slice open a portal beneath herself and dropped through it, plopping herself back into the center of Ponehenge.
There, Starlight saw a small, glittering jade dragonfly buzz into view, which then burst into green flames and took the shape of a burned, injured Chrysalis who was breathing heavily.
“I do hope you have a better plan than talking her to death!” Chrysalis said between heaving breaths, “Since none of this seems to be going well.”
Starlight shrugged, winced as the simple gesture sent sharp lances of pain through her entire battered body, and nodded to the pillars of Ponehenge around them, “Just realized this whole place is some kind of magical prison, or at least the doorway to one. I think Celestia lured us here to trap us inside, in case she couldn’t beat us.”
“Waitwhat!?” Chrysalis exclaimed, “I thought this was just some old ritual site. What do you mean by ‘prison’!?”
“No time to explain,” Starlight said as the heat in the air increased as the only warning before Celestia appeared before them, still dripping with radiance and brimming with power.
She spent a moment glancing at them with eyes spilling light, then tilted her horn upward for just a second. The dome barrier abruptly vanished, like a popped bubble. At Starlight’s raised eyebrow, Celestia said, “It’s rather useless, given you already spirited away Discord. Besides, it allows me to do what I wished I’d done during Cadence’s wedding.”
Chrysalis stiffened at that, lips curling in a grimace as she said, backing up slightly, “Now Celestia, let’s not be childish and go holding grudges over the one time I actually beat you at-”
Celestia moved, and Chrysalis tried to lash out with her Bakkoto, but the alicorn just dodged through the snapping mass of chain blades and arrived behind Chrysalis in a literal flash of light. Deliberately turning her sword sideways to strike with the flat of it like a giant cricket bat, Celestia tagged Chrysalis straight in the side and launched the changeling queen like a flying rag doll through the air at a soaring angle. Chrysalis would have literally kept going, probably entering lower orbit, if not for Starlight quickly cutting the air with her Zanpaktou and creating a portal in Chrysalis’ path that shifted her trajectory to instead impact with the ground a mere dozen feet away.
“Hah, just in time!” Starlight said, giving Chrysalis a hoof-pound gesture, “Aren’t you glad you have me around?”
Twitching, bleeding, with bug wings bent, Chrysalis raised a shaking hoof and gurgled out, “Th-thrilled...”
Celestia made a frustrated sound deep in her throat, “That’s it. Perhaps Eos has a point, and it’s time I ended this.”
She shot upwards into the sky, burning a trail of light upwards like a reverse shooting star. Now a few miles up she halted, and spread her wings wide. The six rings of light detached from her wings and spread out around her, spinning in a pattern that was not unlike the structure of an atom. Starlight felt a seemingly bottomless ocean of magical and spiritual power building up around Celestia as the point in the sky the alicorn hovered at grew ever and ever brighter.
“Uh, well... I think she’s serious this time.”
“This time?” Chrysalis blurted, still trying to figure out which of her limbs wasn’t broken and shift them back into proper place with focused bursts of changeling magic, “You mean she hasn’t been up until now!?”
“Not completely, no,” Starlight said, licking her dry, blood caked lips as she stared upwards, “I’d say she was trying to batter us down enough to force us to surrender. Power she’s currently rocking puts her in the same league as Captain Commander Scorpan, which means even if I did use my Bankai, I couldn’t guarantee I’d be able to turn this around. She’s got us dead to rights and she knows it. But I think I managed to unbalance her mentally. This ‘Eos’, whoever or whatever it is, is screwing with her mind. I don’t think she can control this power fully without risking Eos taking over, and I’m guessing the longer she uses it, the bigger that risk gets as well. I think the Eos side is starting to win that fight, hence why she’s charging up what feels like one heck of a nuke to just wipe us out and be done with it.”
“I trust you have a plan to do something about that!?” Chrysalis shouted, voice quivering slightly as she now too felt the immense build up of power and it came with a vast increase to the headache she’d been feeling ever since Celestia had unleashed the power of that ancient sword.
Starlight let out a humorless gust of a chuckle, “If she’s not thinking straight, she’ll make mistakes. Right now that’s our only chance. Now look, I’ve got almost no power left, but I do have a plan. This gate, prison, whatever it is, is like a big sinkhole in reality with this Ponehenge place being a lid thrown over it. Celestia is so focused on this spell she’s charging up she might have forgotten that prison is even there. If I can use my Zanpaktou to cut that prison open, I ought to create a space that can absorb this attack.”
Chrysalis blinked, “That’s not... totally insane. But if it’s a prison have you given thought to the possibility that something is already inside it that should not be let out?”
“Well, yes, but we’re low on options, and if there is something in this prison, it’ll get a face full of whatever nuke-level spell Celestia is building up, so I’m not that worried about it.”
“Hmph, point taken. How do you plan to do this then, especially if you’re nearly drained of power?”
“With the power of love,” Starlight said while somehow managing a straight face, a shimmer of light enveloping her. Chrysalis was left with a confused stare as she watched Starlight Glimmer change shape, her alicorn form growing from short pony fur to shiny, smooth chitin and her alicorn wings of bright lavender feathers turning into gossamer violet bug wings. Her horn as an alicorn shifted into the curved, split crown of a stag beetle, while her largely lavender chitin also gained stripes of darker purple around her abdomen and chest, several of which converged on the Hogyoku which remained fused into her chest, even in this new form.
“The Pearl of Changing,” Chrysalis grunted, sounding both offended and somewhat impressed, “So it lets you even imitate my kind... but how does this help, oh fellow ‘changeling’?”
Now a changeling queen herself, at least for the moment due to the useful properties of the Pearl of Changing she’d absorbed, Starlight Glimmer held up Ditzy Doo’s Zanpaktou, “I’m nearly out of reiatsu, but changelings gain power from consuming love, right? So long as I have a source of love I can restore myself in this form, even, in theory, help my reiatsu regenerate.”
“And where, pray tell, do you intend to get this love from?”
“Well you, obviously!” Starlight said to a shocked looking Chrysalis, “I just need you to dredge up some love that I can nom on! Hurry it up, Celestia isn’t going to be sitting up there charging up all day!”
“But... but I...” Chrysalis just stood there, mouth half hanging open at the utter audacity of what Starlight Glimmer was suggesting. “Changelings do not share love, you fool!”
“Uh, I have it on good authority from Ocellus that your kind very much can and do share love,” Starlight said, stepping closer to Chrysalis to be nearly horn to horn with her, “Your whole damn colony converted in no time, Chrysalis. I know you didn’t like it, but it happened. Like it or not, that means you got some capacity to do the same. And if you don’t, we’re either about to be incinerated alive, or trapped in a prison dimension! So you’d better find some kind of love in that heart of yours to share, even if it’s just love for yourself, Chrysalis! But whatever you find, you’ve got to learn to give it to someone else, and now.”
While Starlight’s words rung with a logical chime of truth, she was sorely underestimating the utter leap she was asking of Chrysalis. The prideful changeling queen had built her entire life around viewing love as nothing more than a resource to be taken from others and used to nourish herself and her children. Love was not something one produced oneself, let alone shared. The notion was completely ludicrous and counter intuitive. It was like telling someone to feed another person by cutting off their own arm because the arm was technically made of meat. What sane person would ever accept such a mad idea as normal!?
From Chrysalis’ perspective, the pony Starlight Glimmer and the traitor Thorax had all but turned her people into cannibals, throwing away their love to each other willy nilly with no thought to the repercussions or respect for the fact that she’d kept them strong and safe for centuries by harvesting love the proper way; taking it from the other species. In her heart she was still convinced that, as supposedly “happy” as her people seemed in their current state, that the other shoe would inevitably drop and that it couldn’t last. The sharing of love had to have some horrific side effect or consequence. Eventually her children would end up using up love, an ever finite emotion, and start starving again... and then... then finally on that day they’d come crawling back to her, begging her to be their Queen once again.
This is what Chrysalis believed, and why Starlight Glimmer’s suggestion sounded like total madness.
Despite that, she could sense the eradicating power of immense magnitude building around Celestia. Even after a full minute or two the spell was still charging, the rings of light blurring to pure bands of eye searing luminousness that surrounded Celestia’s body. Steam was wafting from the ground for miles around, as if every drop of moisture was being expunged by the growing heat that scorched the air and was even making it a little hard to breathe. There was no doubt in Chrysalis’ mind that Celestia was not of her right mind currently. There was no way the all loving, motherly Princess would have considered building up a spell of this level, for to unleash it would risk horrific damage to the country she loved so much. Chrysalis knew Celestia well enough to tell that her choosing to use such a destructive level of force, with no seeming care for the potential consequences to Equestria’s environment, was a sign her hated rival was no longer entirely in her right mind.
Which was perhaps the most terrifying thing Chrysalis could imagine, and it proved remarkable motivation to try and find some love in herself to feed Starlight, if for no reason other than the practical desire for survival.
----------
Curved blades of ice the size of city buses tore up from the ground in waves, slicing at the darting dark form of Princess Luna. Each time a blade of ice grew close the alicorn spun her twin axes of much darker ice and hammered the oncoming attacks, in many cases shearing through the ice blade’s cleanly.
Platinum, hiding behind one of the blades of ice, appeared when it was shattered and tore the air with a supreme Flash Step with her Fuyukogo tracing a neon blue arc through the air at Luna’s neck. In turn, Luna’s horn bloomed with magic and a spear of black ice that extended for it as she fearlessly used her own horn to deflect Platinum’s sneak attack, magical energy bursting out to clash with spiritual power flowing from Platinum. The clash only lasted a second before Platinum was driven back, and Luna flared her wings, shooting forward and sending her axes into a dizzying display of cross cuts that shot forth cones of shredding ice from every blow.
Platinum used every inch of speed at her disposal to try to deflect the punishing axe blows, Fuyukogo’s blue edge sparking each time the curved tulwar met with the blades of black ice. She twisted and shifted, her half burned unicorn body prancing amid multiple flickering Flash Steps to weave between Luna’s shards of ice. Even so, Platinum was on the backhoof, ice shards tracing cuts across her blue and white battle dress, cutting a bloody trail across one cheek.
In a harsh defensive maneuver she slammed her hooves down and drew upon her Bankai to conjure a sudden wall of ice in front of Luna, a heaving burst of spikes rushing out of the wall to try and spear the alicorn. However Luna simply formed a shield of shining blue magic around herself and shattered the spikes, then flew upward with her axes dragging through the wall to cut the entire edifice in twain before she swept back down and focused her horn upon Platinum, unleashing a blue and black beam of umbral magic at the Soul Reaper.
Platinum managed to Flash Step back, but the beam of magic still cut a long line through her flying island of ice, nearly shearing off a chunk of it. To this, Platinum raised an eyebrow at Luna, “Are you trying to damage your city, Princess? I challenged you here alone as to not involve your citizens, but if you insist on tearing pieces of this island off then it will be difficult to guarantee their safety.”
“I am well aware of the danger to them,” Luna replied in a tone as cold and flat as the ice of her axes, “And trust me, there is none. I could keep this entire island in the sky with my own magic if need be, let alone allow any of it to fall upon my people. Focus your concern upon yourself, for thus far I’ve not broken a sweat against this so-called ‘Bankai’, which is, I am to understand, the ultimate power you Soul Reapers possess, yes?”
Platinum’s cheeks darkened red and her nose huffed a deep snort, “Do not be so swift to judge, Princess. Arrogance creates the pitfalls that lead to defeat, even for the mighty. This much I’ve learned from personal experience.”
She vanished with another Flash Step, a brief sound of rushing air being the only warning before she appeared above Luna and swept Fuyokogo down in a wide arc. White ice in a freezing sheet sliced down, and Luna fired another beam of dark blue magic to spear through the center of the mass at where she’d seen Platinum. However it turned out Platinum wasn’t there, having moved the second she’d unleashed her attack. Luna felt a brief burst of energy nearby and turned to find Platinum standing on the roof of the lowest tier of the Bankai’s fortress castle. With a gesture of her sword, Platinum caused all of the various windows of the castle to open and within stood statues forged of ice that looked like ancient samurai archers with massive bows. With spirit energy glowing around their arrows, the archers unleashed a volley of hundreds of arrows at Luna at speeds akin to Flash Step themselves.
Luna uses a little extra magic to accelerate her own speed, becoming a dark blue after image as she carved a path through the swarming ice arrows. The archers drew and fired like they were characters in a tv show set to fast forward, tracing machine-gun patterns in the air to try and chase down and tag Luna, who continued to readily evade the shots with aplomb.
That said, each arrow that missed, which began to mount to thousands instead of just hundreds, didn’t keep going, but under Platinum’s control would turn in the air and hover, tracking Luna’s motions, then fly out once more. This continued until Luna found that, no matter how fast she was moving, the cloud of ice arrows started to cut off all avenues of escape.
At that point, Platinum gestured once more with her sword, and caused the tornado-like cloud of arrows to converge on Luna in a wave... which should have logically impacted upon the alicorn, but all Platinum heard was an endless ringing of icy steel and snapping chunks of ice.
To Platinum’s eye-twitching annoyance, Luna’s axes were joined by an additional pair, and together the axes moved with such blurring dark speed that every single arrow that converged on her were deflected away or powdered to harmless chunks in a continuous sound of breaking ice.
“If it’s your pride as a Soul Reaper you seek to defend, I’ll be a little gracious and say that your abilities are impressive,” Luna said with a smile that was somehow both cordial, polite, and incredibly smug all at once, the younger royal sister’s eyes shining with a look that Platinum had seen in the likes of Captain Hurricane when he was getting into a fight. Luna was enjoying herself. “As I told your friend Firefly upon our last engagement, I appreciate having cause to actually use the skills and magic I’ve honed over long years, against a foe unafraid to face an alicorn in open battle. I swear, cowards like Chrysalis were ever so frustrating!”
To Luna’s surprise, Platinum’s eyes flared with an anger that had nothing to do with personal pride, “I have met this Chrysalis of yours. She is a... difficult woman to get along with, but quite frankly I found her company infinitely preferable to the Chrysalis of my world.”
Luna let out a genuine laugh, “Would you like to trade? From what I’ve heard of your Chrysalis, at least I’d get a challenging fight.”
The seriousness in Platinum’s gaze actually made Luna’s smile falter slightly, “Princess Luna, regardless of the outcome of our battle here, if you listen to nothing else I ever say, listen to me now when I say not to take the Second Espada lightly. Ever. I’ve come to realize she may be more dangerous than Tirek himself.”
“Is she not your ally?”
“I do not believe that creature understands the meaning of the phrase. My only regret in joining Starlight Glimmer’s cause is having to stomach her presence, and that I’ve failed to impress upon Starlight just how dangerous her alliance with our world’s Chrysalis is. Even now Starlight treats her like just another pawn to be sent out on missions. It is... a mistake.”
Luna’s expression darkened to a frown, “It did not escape me or my sister’s prediction that your world’s Chrysalis would be dispatched to attack another location. Where did you send her?”
Platinum raised her sword, eyes narrowing, “Do not misunderstand. I am not making common cause with you. Give me the cure to Firefly’s cursed wounds and I shall depart. Then you shall be free to go as you will, even to go defend another location if you suspect there is danger elsewhere.”
Luna grimaced, but did not relent, “Hmm, the Crystal Empire is the only place i can think of that would be a suitable target. Perhaps Ponyville, but we’ve ensured its defenses as well. And if your Chrysalis went to the Empire, then she will not find it an easy target. Too many underestimate Princess Cadence, but she is an able guardian for her nation alongside her husband.”
“Tell yourself what you will, I have given the only warning that I felt honor bound to give. If you will not help me cure Firefly...” Platinum’s body glowed with an intense aura of spiritual pressure, her Fuyokogo burning with frozen blue light, “Then I will spare nothing in forcing you to give it up!”
“I’d be disappointed if you did otherwise,” Luna replied, “But I am no longer splitting my magic, and you face me at my full power. Even with your Bankai, I wonder if you can keep up for much longer?”
“With just my Bankai alone, perhaps not...” Platinum admitted, then with a look that wasn’t particularly pleased, she added, “But what about two?”
Luna cocked her head, finding that a particularly odd thing for Platinum to say, until she heard a voice that sounded identical to Platinum’s ring across the air.
“Bankai!”
A shadow appeared above Luna, growing to encapsulate the entirety of the island and fortress formed by Platinum’s Bankai. A shadow being created by a second island that grew into place to float in the air directly above. The island was, in all respects, an identical copy of Platinum’s Bankai, Fuyokogo Sodaina Kyuden. Only this island and castle were inverted, so that the roofs of the two fortresses were nearly touching, and the icy clawed pillars surrounding the island circumference were also inches from touching one another. As a result it almost looked like there was a huge sphere of uneven ice, with a cage of curved pillars forming an open center in which two castles mirrored one another.
Luna’s shock almost caused her not to dodge in time as a frigid streak of blue passed by her, a blue tulwar nearly cutting her neck if she didn’t duck at the last second. She felt the familiar rush of a Flash Step pass by her, and starred as a woman appeared next to Platinum.
A woman who looked very much like Platinum, save for the fact that the real Platinum was currently in the shape of a partially burned scarred unicorn, while this Platinum was an unscarred human woman in the dark blue battle dress shaped from her Bankai, and carried an identical copy of Fuyokogo in her pale hand. The other difference, besides the somewhat more cocky and youthful look of this Platinum, was that her eyes glowed with an unnatural purple light that bled tendrils of crackling energy.
“What...?” was all Luna could think to say, and the new Platinum let out a haughty laugh.
“Hohoh! Surprised!? Boasting about being twice as powerful, are you!? Well now you face twice the woman, twice the Captain, and twice the unflagging beauty and grace of two Captain Platinums!”
The real Platinum looked rather... mortified to be standing next to her Reigai, letting out an embarrassed sigh as her her face burned even hotter, “Yes... well... as you can see, Luna, I...um... have backup.”
“Oh come now my dear original,” said the copy, “No need to hide your relief upon seeing me arrive. Together we’ll handily dispatch this insolent adversary and force out of her a cure for our friend Fleetfly-”
“Firefly,” Platinum said pointedly.
“Yes, yes, her.”
Luna fixed the real Platinum with a hard gaze, arching an eyebrow, “Again I reiterate... what?”
“She’s a Reigai,” Platinum explained with an exasperated dip of her head, “One I was not eager to see made, but Starlight Glimmer made a very rational point that by myself my chances of victory against you were somewhat low. Hence, a spiritual clone, to help even the odds.”
“Hmph, more than even them I’d say,” Reigai Platinum said with one hand still firmly on her Zanptkou while the other went to her hip, “Seriously, original, let’s try to maintain some personal positivity, shall we? It’s depressing to see myself acting like such a sourpuss.”
“Let us just... focus on defeating the Princess,” Platinum replied to her clone, her eyes now locking back onto Luna, “Thinking about anything else right now is unnecessary.”
“Hmph, so be it, but just don’t go slowing me down,” the Reigai said, also turning her eyes to focus in on Luna, who in turn took up a ready stance to resume the fight.
“Interesting,” Luna said, “At the very least I expect the two of you to be able to actually get my heart pumping.”
With that, the two Platinums vanished from view, Flash Steps taking them to opposite sides of Luna as they rushed her with streams of shredding ice. As Luna met them with a storm of axes seething with frozen magical might, she did find she was starting to enjoy the prospect of having a decent fight. Yet even as her clash with Platinum and her new clone resumed, a part of Luna felt a stab of worry.
Not for herself, for she still held every confidence that she could win this. Her injured wing barely hurt, and her magic reserves were still an immense well, and the Relic her sister had given her rested in its sub-dimensional pocket for easy access. Even two Platinums weren’t going to find Luna an easy foe.
No, Luna’s worry was for Cadence, for despite her earlier boast she was fully aware that Cadence was not in the same sphere of power that she and Celestia was. She had not faced this Second Espada personally, this Chrysalis from another world who seemed to inspire terror in those who met her. It was difficult for Luna to imagine, but if Platinum’s words were to be trusted... was the Crystal Empire truly going to be okay?
For all her worries, she tried to assuage her concerned heart. Cadence had trump cards of her own to play, and allies waiting in the wings. Luna had to trust it would be enough to keep the Empire and its people safe.
But a kernel of doubt still remained, regardless.
----------
Defense was Shining Armor’s specialty, but what not everypony familiar with his reputation might have known was that Equestria’s Captain of the Royal Guard was fully versed in the ideology that a strong defense often consists of an equally powerful offense.
As such his magical “shields” were as much weapons as protective spells, which Chrysalis’ Arrancar drones were learning to their detriment. He shaped shields of magical force into sharp discs that cut with the force and precision of monofilament wires, and currently had a score of such conjurations flying around him in patterns so fast one could hear the discs screaming through the air. Every time an Arrancar drone hissed into view, trying to sneak close to him with Sonido, they found these razor sharp discs of magical force cutting their way. Several had already lost limbs or taken deep bleeding cuts from glancing blows, their Hierro hardened skin not quite up to the challenge of protecting against a sharp plane of raw magic force no thicker than a molecule.
And Shining Armor strode forward boldly with a bubble of protective force around him. This bubble was not invincible, for the enemy’s blades and potent Cero blasts could batter it down, but whenever Shining Armor saw his protective shell crack he’d summon a fresh one right behind it.
Granted this method of heavy offense and defense was incredibly draining, but he was holding up, and with his troops marching behind him in a tightly packed formation with shields raised of their own, they’d driven the increasingly aggressive and angry Arrancar back towards the square they originally struck. The objective of Shining Armor and his forces were to clear a path to any injured civilians and clear the way for any final evacuees. He’d been getting continuous reports from other cohorts in the Crystal Guard and was aware that the city’s evacuation was nearing completion, although there were still strangers in the outskirts and an unknown number of wounded in the initial area that got attacked.
He grimaced as several Arrancar appeared to his right, and unleashed slick red beams towards not just him, but bombarding the area around him. While his magical barrier held under the explosive blows, he still felt regret over seeing houses being swept away into rubble but the stray energies of the blasts. Those homes were either already evacuated, or under the teleportation charms Cadence had placed upon the city’s buildings, but even if Shining Armor was fairly sure civilian lives were not being lost, the shear damages being done to the Empire’s city was growing to worrying levels. He saw pillars of smoke and felt the heat of flames from other parts of the city that were burning, and knew the other enemy force, these strange copy Soul Reapers, were responsible for a good portion of damage on the north end of the city.
“Copy” Soul Reapers was the phrase being used by his sergeants in the field, since the bulk of the enemy troops of that type appeared to be nearly identical copies of one another, the males and females of the group looking essentially like twins and using the exact same weapons. How these copies had been made was a mystery, but at least they seemed more focused on just causing property damage rather than seriously trying to kill Shining Armor’s guardpoines. No casualties had been reported from his cohorts fighting the Soul Reapers... which couldn’t be said for his own forces here fighting the Arrancar.
For all that he and the Crystal Guard were doing well, his own soldiers defensive barriers weren’t as strong as his, and some of the Arrancar had focused their attentions on them. He’d heard more than a few screams from injured or dying soldiers who either got pulled out of formation by a fast moving Arrancar, or from when a Cero hit a weakened shield and broke through. His cohort was still holding formation, but they’d lost a few, and more might be lost if he couldn’t deal with these bastards faster.
Thus far he’d cut down about three of them, but they were damned fast, and there were enough of them that while he focused on taking down one, others would hammer his troops.
It was a growing, gnawing anger in his gut, for Shining Armor had led ponies for years, but he was still young by most standards, and while this was not his first battle it was the first one where he’d lost soldiers under his command. Equestria was, by and large, peaceful, and so too the Crystal Empire. Aside from the very rare monster attack there were few occasions for those he led to face danger, and in those instances the worst of it had often been injuries rather than deaths.
Shining Armor didn’t balk or buckle under the weight of the anger, however, merely used it to help focus his mind on his magic. The discus flew faster as he added more magic, generating chains as he had before, but now striking from the discs themselves. This caught some of the Arrancar off guard, the magical chains wrapping up one’s legs and actually drawing the thrashing creature into the buzzing disc of magic like a fly being drawn into a frog’s mouth. The resultant shower of innards from the magic disc cutting the Arrancar in half was unpleasant, but Shining Armor ignored it as he expanded the size of several other discs and used them to slam another pair of Arrancar together as he called out, “Focus fire here, troops! Hit them with all you’ve got!”
His guardsponies leaped to obey, the back rows of crossbow wielder firing crystal bolts into the dazed Arrancar in a shower of explosions, while further back more trained spellcasters added beams of arcane force. The Arrancar were wounded and battered, but Shining Armor was annoyed to see they could withstand his troops hits far better than his own attacks, but those ones did retreat, buzzing away once they pushed past his shields.
“Hey, cocky asshole, look up!” shouted one Arrancar, and Shining Armor glanced upward with a glower to see a pair of Chrysalis’ drones had used their unnatural strength to haul a gigantic hunk of rubble, probably form one of the bigger buildings, and proceeded to drop it at him.
He shifted his magic so his discs flew into the rubble, dicing it to pieces that rained down around him.
He then felt an impact on his shield and realized the rubble was meant to draw his discs away while more Arrancar converged on his shield, slamming the tips of their swords into the shielding bubble protecting him. The Hollows let out snickering hoots as they all charged point-blank Cero beams from the tips of their swords, and even Shining Armor’s shield had trouble holding up as half a dozen Ceros exploded upon him at once.
Shining Armor felt his horn strain against the repeated hits, magic pouring out to keep his shield going, but even so cracks formed and searing Cero energy poured through like small jets of fire. His shield held, but his hide was burned where his armor failed to protect, causing Shining Armor to grunt in pain before he shoved his magic outward in a burst that sent the Arrancar flying away from him.
“Keep advancing!” he shouted to his troops, “The central square is just ahead!”
A fresh volley of explosive crystal bolts and spell beams from his forces filled the air, and the laughing Arrancar responded in kind, sending crimson beams of death down towards the bravely marching cohort of Crystal Guard. It was that laughter and snickering that got to Shining Armor the most. Even as he killed and wounded these beasts it was as if they were enjoying it, having fun with the fight regardless of which side was bleeding.
Were they insane? Probably. As crazy as their mad mother.
Which was the other source of Shining Armor’s urgency and fear. He knew his wife was fighting these creature’s leader, and he could feel the power of Chrysalis filling the air like a choking, cloying gas. Magical senses didn’t quite do the spiritual power of Chrysalis justice, but he sensed the sickening weight of that power regardless, and knowing Cadence was the one who had to face that filled him with dread even as he felt both love and pride in his wife, believing she’d be able to win.
Didn’t hurt that he knew the surprises she had in store, and if the growing, faint hum of magical power he felt inside the very stones of the Crystal Empire’s streets, it wouldn’t be long before his wife could start turning the tide.
Meanwhile he still had civilians to save, and even as the Arrancar kept up their relentless assault, Shining Armor and his cohort burst upon the scene of the central square. He paused, somewhat surprised by what he saw. Given the central square had been first to be attacked, he’d expected the worst. He’d expected to find dead civilians that they couldn't have been in time to save.
Instead he found what looked like a rather neatly organized triage area in which several dozen civilians were being treated of wounds by, of all things, several of the Soul Reapers, including a woman of snowy skin with a head of pink hair, who held a strange weapon of white cloth affixed with pointed knives. A Zanpaktou?
The woman turned to see Shining Armor and his troops arrive, Arrancar still buzzing around them, and quickly shouted at the Arrancar, “Hey! This is no place to bring the fight! We’re treating civilians here!”
One of the Arrancar turned towards her and let out a spittle laden hiss, “Shut up your ugly Soul Reaper face! We’re having fun and I'm getting tired of you trying to ruin it!”
The Soul Reaper woman gained a look that Shining Armor had seen certain ornery nurses get when they were dealing with an unruly patient, and she vanished with a Flash Step and appeared in the sky near the center of the Arrancar, who paused in their attacks to look at her.
“Ahem! Perhaps I wasn't making myself clear. I said,” The Soul Reaper raised her right hand and spun her white cloth laden with interlaced knives around, and it writhed like a living thing, spinning outward with tempestuous force. A whirlwind of snow flew out and froze the limbs of several Arrancar, “Take it somewhere else!”
The Arrancar with frozen limbs growled and backed off, shaking off the snow frost, while several others appeared around the woman with their blades poised to strike. One of them licked his lips as he leered at the Soul Reaper, “You know what, screw you! Mother asked us to play nice with you jackholes, but only to a freakin' point! I say we just rip you worthless dolls to shreds alongside these candy colored soul snacks!”
“I’m with you on that bro,” said another Arrancar, “I want to know what the fake Soul Reapers taste like, too!”
“Let’s just eat everyone!” shouted another, “Eat! Eat! Eat!”
Soon the chant was picked up and before Shining Armor knew it the Arrancar were turning their attention to the Soul Reapers as well as his own troops.
“Protect the civilians!” shouted the woman with the odd Zanpaktou, and Shining Armor saw her whip the scarf-like weapon out once more at the nearest Arrancar in a flurry of snow.
He lost track of her then, as another Arrancar had dived at him, its blade slamming into his shield. He sent a disc sawing through the air after it, forcing the Arrancar to dodge aside before it could unleash a Cero. As his troops poured into the city square, the other copy Soul Reapers ignored the guardsponies and instead did as their leader bade and took up defensive positions around the civilians they’d been treating.
Shining Armor had no idea what in Tartarus was going on, but he wasn’t about to question sudden unexpected allies too much. “Treat these Soul Reapers as friendlies! Focus all fire on the Arrancar!” He ordered, and sent his discs back to work in chasing down Arrancar as fast as he could, starting with a pair he saw firing Cero blasts at the Soul Reaper woman who he spotted again as she zipped into view back down in the square.
Just as his magical discs flew through one Arrancar, cutting halfway through its side, he saw the Soul Reaper woman fling her knife-scarf past him, unleashing a concentrated tendril of snow that froze over the top half of an Arrancar that had appeared behind him.
“Thanks,” he muttered. She nodded to him.
“Same to you. Lieutenant Redheart.”
“Shining Armor.”
“Truce, until these monsters are dealt with?”
“Agreed, until they’re dealt with,” he replied curtly, “Then if it’s all the same to you I want you people out of my city.”
“Guess we’ll cross the bridge when we get there, but for now,” Redhead said, sending out another blast of snow towards their now mutual enemies, “I’ll just be glad to not have you as an enemy.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.033 seconds
Total duration
671 users online
822,834 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
… let’s see here
Whatever this pony of shadows is…
Okay
This version of both the pony of shadows and the pillars are about to be blasted by sun fire
Luna, still has her ace
Cadence has… at least 1
The heart
And maybe something else
This looks about right
Is it the personality of a younger Platinum ?
11121100
The Reigai personalities do have to be formed from elements that exist within the original, but at least in this story's context, those elements are adjustable. For example the Reigai's memories have to be drawn from the original's, but how much memory is present, which specific memories exist or are blocked, or even which memories are made sharper or more vague, are all adjustable, By the same token personality traits can be emphasized or downplayed, like say cranking up Starswirl's thirst for knowledge, or turning down Zercora's loyalty to Soul Society but cranking up her desire to protect her own people. By the same token this Platinum Reigai's memories and personality traits have been fiddled with to a degree, and yes elements of a younger Platinum have been emphasized since a younger Platinum was not as heavily loyal to Central 46 and was even an outspoken critic of Soul Society's strict laws.
Name of the chapter “Back Against the Wall”
My head.
“Back against the wall. You gonna give it your all. This is the final stand. The powers in your hand. Two worlds collide. On the inside. Gonna fight for what’s right. Before it’s gone gone gone. This is Bakugan.”
Anyways now on to the chapter!
Starlight did you stop for a moment and consider? That if something is trapped in a prison such as Ponehenge, it's because that thing is something that Celestia and Luna together couldn't even defeat.
Hell even with Starswirl and the Pillars, Ponehenge was their only option (even though Celestia, Luna, Starswirl and Scorpan had previously defeated Tirek in his prime) and it ultimately took TWO sets of Elements of Harmony to defeat the guy. This is someone who could legitimately go toe to toe with Discord or even beat him straight up. What I'm saying is that if you release him, don't antagonize him, be friendly or HE'LL murk your ass.
Reigai Platinum appears to be from before the Captain's husband died. Now the Reigai will be just as powerful as her original counterpart (no reason to weaken this one as Platinum was always anti-central 46) and Princess Luna will still be stronger than both. Basically even without using the relic, I still see Luna winning unless Platinum uses her Vaizard Mask. Even assuming that happens, the relic will guarantee Luna's victory.
Shining Armour is handling himself pretty well, though these are just kind of fodder Arrancar so that's not saying much. Luna directly said they had ALLIES nearby so that all but confirms the Changelings can be called in on that front (makes the most sense given the Crystal Heart and all).
I don't know what "defenses" they could have set up around Ponyville, unless they have the Dragons defending it. Everyone else is kind of taken at the moment.
Yeesh, Eos sounds like a real piece of work. So arrogant and sure of her own godhood, she didn't care as the world burned around her as long as she continued to be adored and praised. Even devising a scheme to reclaim said godhood long after she was dead...
11121928
Villains with God Complexes tend to be real pieces of work, Narcissists who'll do anything to maintain (or in this case restore) the status quo as long as it keeps them on top.
She reminds me (sort of) of
YhwachLord Mustache from canon Bleach, or more recently President Hastur from Ghost Reaper Girl.11121752
Without Bankai, Platinum was able to fight quite well a Luna at half-power, are you sure than two to one with Bankai couldn’t at least go toe to toe with her without her relic ?
11122020
A Luna at half power that also wasn't using any High Magic until right at the end (the attack that actually DID force Platinum to use Bankai, albeit she had half power Celestia's help with that). You also have to remember that Celestia and Luna were specifically trying NOT to kill them then, they wanted them alive. Luna has NO reason to hold back AT ALL here.
So no, against a full power Princess Luna actively using High Magic, I don't see them beating her even 2 v 1. I mean she just proved she could EASILY block all their attacks, even from all angles. Push her hard yes but I don't see them beating her, unless Platinum puts her Vaizard Mask on. At which point Luna would be forced to use her Relic and end the fight.
11122029
It would most definitely be good as a way to remind of how Equestria is not to be mess with.
The fact than Celestia thanks to Eos’ power had reached Scorpan’s power, therefore that of someone able to fight members of the Zero Division and the factions leaders one-on-one is a other good thing of that.
Also, with Chrysalis and Starlight eating each other’s love (it sound dirty
) it’s still possible Chrysalis get her royal form, although obviously it wouldn’t be enough.
11122358
I doubt will be able to share. She's just too much of a narcissist to do that. Starlight on other hand showed she can do that. And there's always Trixie.
11122465
Well, fear of death can be powerful thing regarding making someone swallow it’s pride.
Obviously, Starlight will feed of Trixie’s love (although, could Chrysalis do it as well without weakening the power Starlight could get ?) but at this level of power than Celestia have with Eos’ back-up ? Better do both or there will not even be ashes of them once Celestia/Eos (we really should find them a nickname) unleash their Sunfire.
11121752
I'm more concerned about the awkwardness between Iah and Eos bleeding off into Celestia and Luna again. The Nightmare Moon persona very much sounds like Iah looking at Celestia through the young Luna's perspective just seeing Eos, in all her vain and despotic glory. Que heavy emotional bleed, and the birth of the eternal night.
Pehaps even outmatching him in terms of raw power. She might still holds back or is not at full power. Sun is not a joke:
11128174
Furthermore, the two don't work together, but fight each other for control.
Also Vex, i think it was said then Cadence is a inheritor, right ?
If so, she would really need that to hope to drive back Espada Chrysalis.
11128811
I can't recall if I'm specifically confirmed her as an Inheritor, but it's at least been implied.
Forgive me for taking up space in your comments section with something that (as far as I know, but I'm 29 chapters behind) doesn't directly relate to your story. My mind was wandering, and I had a thought that I just had to share somewhere related to both Bleach and MLP. So, the 'artifacts' of the Pillars of Equestria (Starswirl's clique) are all mundane objects, except the shield but even that shouldn't have any magic that can be outwardly expressed and aimed at something. Yet they obviously have some kind of power given that Stygian thought copying them would give him the ability to fight, and they were able to sync with the Elements of Harmony. Oh, and Mistmane's flower stayed nice and healthy for over a thousand years. What this thought amounts to is; I'm honestly kind of surprised no one has made an MLP/Bleach crossover where the Pillars are Fullbringers.
11133899
Huh, good point. And as far we know it still might be the case. The Pillars might know more about Equestria's afterlife than anyone suspects.
Similar with their Human versions. We've only heard about Starswirl and Flash Magnus (and Meadowbrook but that's a case of reincarnation). Some might be Fulbringers or even Hollows.