Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls

by thatguyvex

Episode 180: Hell's Chains

Episode 180: Hell’s Chains

Sunset had rarely attributed emotional characteristics to inanimate objects, but to her eyes the tall doors of stone that spanned upwards a solid thirty feet bore a remorseless, pitiless quality. The twin skeletal bodies that were merged with those doors had no eyes, yet she felt their gaze like black spears, piercing and cold. Each skeleton was run through by gold, twisted nails with rings caped upon their ends, and their skeletal faces were wrapped in white cloth marked by red talisman strips. The symbolism was lost on Sunset, if there even was any behind the design of the Gates of Hell, and she hardly had time to ponder, for with a groan like the bellow of a long slumbering giant now awakening, the Gates had swung open.

Beyond, darkness, and flame. A pit without seeming end, yet Sunset felt she could sense the shift of something immense beyond. Power, akin to reiatsu, yet scalding to the senses. Spiritual energy turned into something altogether more writhing and violent.

She didn’t hesitate. She got between Rarity and those Gates while shouting back at her friend, “What are you waiting for!? RUN!”

Rarity had been staring into the depths of the Gates for that brief moment like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights, but Sunset’s voice snapped her out of it and in an instant Rarity had summoned forth her crystalline construct in the shape of a pegasus. She was atop it and the construct spread its wings to bear its creator to safety with all speed, but the moment it began to do so Rarity was yanked off of it with a yelp.

Sunset, blinking in astonishment, heard a clink of metal rattle through the air. To her shock, and Rarity’s horror, several dozen spectral chains of black iron now wrapped around Rarity’s arms, legs, and torso, as if they had always been there. The chains glinted, partially translucent and partially solid, and all led into the depths of the Gates of Hell.

Nearby, Bowtie spoke in cold words, “The moment she was judged, the chains were upon your friend. There is no escape from Hell’s grasp.”

He turned, looking to Blossom, “I go to aid Minty. See that our egress is ready.”

“Yeah yeah, don’t need to get all bossy about it,” Blossom said with a wave at his brother before Bowtie vanished with a Flash Step. Sunset might have thought to give chase if she didn’t have immensely bigger issues right now. Again, without hesitation she acted, Hokori burning brightly in her hand as she swung as hard as she could with her Zanpaktou upon the chains binding Rarity.

With a burst of sparks and a dull ring of unbroken steel, Sunset saw her sword bounce off the chains without so much as leaving a mark on them.

“Oh dear,” Rarity said, feeling the chains tighten around her and start to pull her towards the yawning portal to Hell, “This is potentially a bit of a kerfuffle, isn’t it?”

“Rarity!”

“Hold on, sugarcube!”

“We’re coming!”

Shouts descended alongside the rest of the girls, all flying in from all sides to try and help their friend. Applejack used her left arm to grab Rarity around the waist while aiming her drill lance at the nearest chain. Rocket beams of energy shot from Applejack’s armor as she tried to yank Rarity backwards while at the same time spinning up her drill to a feverish pitch, slamming it’s blurred tip to the chains. Gold sparks flew, yet just as with Sunset’s Zanpaktou, the chains resisted Applejack’s attempt to break them.

Rainbow Dash tried to form wind around her spear, sharpening the wind currents into a sawing disc that she hurled at the chains, to equally little effect. The girl growled in frustration and shouted, “What the heck is with these chains!? Why can’t we break them?”

Pinkie Pie had formed a mass of dark, neon pink tendrils lined with massive mouths of razor teeth, and was biting the chains like a mad dog worrying at a bone, and the girl gave a confused shrug at Dash’s question, “Beats me! Mina’s teeth can usually chomp through just about anything!”

Pinkie’s face shifted slightly, her tone growing unamused as Mena said, “These things taste like ash and regret. Eugh! They burn my non-existent taste buds. Pinkie, got any gags to get us out of this?”

“Honestly Mena the situation is about as unfunny as it gets! I’ve got no joke ideas at all! I can’t rap battle a door, even if it’s a super mean door with anger issues!”

“Then we close them,” Fluttershy said. She had flown down to float above Rarity, facing the Gates. With her six arms clasped in front of her in a motion of prayer, she extended hundreds of her golden spirit arms from her halo. They shot outward in two groups, each bunching up on either side of the Gates and Fluttershy let out a grunt of strain as she struggled with all her power to close them.

However the Gates barely budged, and Rarity was being dragged closer, inch by inch.

Sunset hadn’t stopped trying to hack at the chains, but at the same time she looked to others present. Captain Amore looked stunned, but Blueblood was already in motion. His Bankai remained active, and with a gesture he moved the bright disc of glass around so that it hovered just a dozen feet above.

“I won’t abandon you, my Lady Rarity,” he declared, and with another gesture, numerous blades of glass extended down from the disc like a forest of highly sharp roots. They bent and twisted to Blueblood’s will, forming a latticework around the chains and creating a barrier between Rarity and the Gates.

“There, that ought to slow-” Blueblood started to say. However at just that moment something else emerged from the Gates. A hand, as large as any giant’s, and formed of thick gray flesh. Upon it were flaming red markings, like glowing tattoos, and further along it’s length there were segments of what looked like dark and gold lined armor plating. This hand balled into a fist and smashed right through Blueblood’s glass blades, and then opened to try and grasp at Rarity.

“Back off! Aoihi Senko!” Sunset growled, zipping in front of the oncoming hand and slashing horizontally with Hokori to unleash a focused wave of azure flame. The blue flames burned into the hand, marking it’s palm with black char and forcing it back a bit. But only a bit. Beyond the hand and the arm attached to it, Sunset could see in the depths of the Gate were two glowing yellow eyes, attached to a huge mass that looked too broad and bulky to be human. Whatever it was, it let out a deep bellow, and the hand reached for Rarity again.

It was intercepted by a twin rain of arrows. From above came a pelting swath of blue reishi arrows, each of which were rimmed with purple flickers of magic. Twilight Sparkle had manifested her bow, alongside a new gauntlet upon her left arm that Sunset didn’t recognize. It was similar to Twilight’s previous Hexenfaust, but the armor segments were smoother, with geometric lines of blue etched across their surface that glowed with power. The metal was still a dark purple, and towards the shoulder there were three metallic notes that looked like miniature pyramids aligned in a rough circle. One of these sparked with blue arcs of energy and in a pop of light a tiny cylinder of metal appeared that itself glowed with a core of flickering purple. Twilight used simple magical telekinesis to guide the upgrade M-Cell from the storage space it had been teleported out of and loaded it into her Hexenfaust Mk.II, preparing to charge up a more potent attack than the Licht Regen she’d just fired upon the hand stemming from the Gates.

At the same moment, the other arrow barrage came from Rarity’s knights, all of whom surrounded the Gates with precision efficiency. Cannons were brought to bear and in moments were unleashing crimson fury upon the hand and whatever dwelled beyond. Crystal arrows and exploding cannon shot smashed into the Gates, and several dozen crimson knight constructs rushed in and formed a barricade in front of the grasping hand, hacking at it with their numerous weapons.

The hand responded by backing up, but only so much as it gave it space to open it’s palm upward. Suddenly deep orange hellfire coalesced in the air above the hand, and then spread out to take solid shape, summoning forth a gigantic and bitterly sharp cleaver that fell right into the waiting hand’s grip. With shocking strength the hand swung that cleaver, which burst with more hellfire, and scattered a swath of Rarity’s knights like kicking toys aside.

“Applejack, Rainbow Dash, we can’t cut the chains!” shouted Sunset, “Help Fluttershy close the Gates instead! Twilight, Pinkie, Amore, Blueblood, help me drive the hand back!”

She had a thought that perhaps her black flames might cut the chains, but there were so many that she wasn’t sure she could hold onto it long enough to get them all. But she could potentially drive the hand back into the Gates, with some help, and then if the rest of her friends could just get those doors shut...

Nobody questioned her orders, even the two Captains whom she technically didn’t command. They just went to work. Applejack had been holding Rarity back, keeping the chains from dragging her more than a few more inches closer, but now that job got taken over by a group of Rarity’s knights, while Rarity herself had summoned forth her whirlpool of blood and used it now to create a series of ruby crystal chains of her own that she used to stretch out to the ground below where she anchored herself and started to yank back.

“Ugh, this is most uncomfortable,” Rarity said, grunting in pain as her body became the central focus of a tug-o-war between her friends and the literal pull of Hell itself.

“Just don’t lose hope, we’ll git ya outta here! I swear it!” Applejack said with vehement intensity, flying in a flash of gold light to get on one of the Gates, while Rainbow Dash burst into lightning and instantly formed on the other. “Get pushin’, Dash! Rarity’s dependin’ on us!”

“Don’t need to tell me twice! Hrrrrggg!” Rainbow Dash’s wings burned with a wash of rainbow colored power as each wing shot forth wind, lightning, and cascades of raw power as she pushed with her shoulder upon the door of stone, aided by many of Fluttershy’s spectral arms.

The same scene was playing out with Applejack, every jet nozzle on her armor open and firing streams of gold light as she pushed with her lance point first upon her side of the Gates, yelling for all she was worth as she strained with all of her might to close them.

The very air was crackling and shaking from the waves of spiritual energies pouring out of the girls struggling to save their friend. The hand was certainly not finding it easy to advance, for it now had to contend with a storm of blows from multiple sources. Pinkie Pie was now playing literal whack-a-mole with her hammer, trying to smash the hand’s fingers to get it to drop it’s blade, “They say when all you’ve got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail! Well you’ve got five nails on this hand, buster, so you better believe Pinkie is gonna smash!”

Her power did seem to have some effect, for a solid blow on the hand’s thumb made it loosen it’s grip as the thumb started to throb with a cartoonish red glow.

Amore, lacking a Zanpaktou, hung back from the fray. She clasped her own hands in front of her and began a Kido incantation.

“Walls of iron and sand,

a priestly pagoda,

glowing ironclad fireflies,

Standing upright, silent to the end”

Five strands of orange energy rise from her hands and moved upward like small beads of light until they became five circular orbs above her head. She then thrust her hands down and intoned, “Bakudo Number Seventy Five: Gochutekkan.” (Five-Pillared Iron Weights)

A circular blaze of orange energy appeared above the hand from Hell, and from that circle descended five pillars of bright iron metal, attached to one another by thick chains. The pillars slammed into the hand’s arm at the wrist, pressing in with force and seeking to slow it’s movements. Amore gasped, sweat beading her brow, her chest aching.

It had not truly been that long ago that she’d suffered the near fatal wound from Chrysalis’ blade that had all but destroyed her Soul Sleep. Amore may have recovered a decent portion of her power due to Starswirl’s treatments, but to expend too much reiatsu still caused her great pain. And even invoking the Kido’s full incantation, she couldn’t put too much power into her Kido. She wished she had her Zanpaktou fully restored, but that was taking even longer than fixing the damage to her Soul Sleep. All Amore could do was this small amount, and hope these human girls could do the rest.

Well, that and Blueblood, who despite a growing fear on his face was not backing down, and was keeping close to Rarity like a protective hawk. “Blasted hand! Begone with your wretched digits!”

With greater and greater speed the blades of thick glass extended down in a tempest of stabs from on high, the disc spinning about as it created an increasing tempo of attacks. Each blade of glass was around three feet thick, but was nearly invisible to the naked eye. It was only their number and the speed with which they struck that made many of them visible at all, and from the way they curved and bent as they moved, it was apparent Blueblood could direct these blades however he wished, much like their much smaller Shikai counterparts. Each strike of the glass edges cut shallow wounds upon the Kushanada’s arm and hand, but the hide was so insanely tough that even direct stabs couldn’t get more than an inch deep, although Blueblood quickly adjusted his tactic to start focusing on the same few spots to try and dig his blades deeper. The Kushanada in turn was demolishing his blades one after another with air rending swings of its cleaver, but the large disc that formed the Bankai’s main body seemed quite capable of producing more to replace the broken ones.

“It’s... a lovely Bankai,” Rarity said past clenched teeth as she struggled against the increasing pain of having her soul pulled at like a piece of taffy. “Rather glad I stopped you from ever using it on me.”

“Hah, knowing you, I still would have lost, even if I had...” Blueblood replied, then winched as he saw the hand rear up and give a might backswing that pulverized a dozen more of his glass blades, “Damn it all, what is this thing?”

“A Kushanada,” Amore said, “Did you never pay attention to your Academy lessons, Blueblood? These are Hell’s own guardians and jail keepers. Even we Captains know little about them besides their name and function.”

“I don’t suppose you know if they’ve got any weaknesses!?” asked Sunset in between flaring in and out of arcing slashes upon the Kushanada’s arm. Each strike was faster and more driven than the last, Sunset’s wings firing jets of such intense heat that she had to be careful not to burn Rarity, who was in such close proximity. She was taking advantage of the Kushanada’s wild swings to block with Hikari, using each massive impact upon her shield to add fuel to Hokori’s flames. By now she was starting to see wounds piling up on the Kushanada’s hand. It didn’t bleed anything like conventional blood, but rather a thick, molten liquid that seared hotter than magma. This made it a tad difficult to keep up the attack, because she had to keep dodging those bubbling droplets of blood, as did Pinkie Pie, who’s pink tendrils covered in fanged mouths started to burn away the deeper they managed to bite.

As to Sunset’s question, Amore wore a strained look of apology, her deep red hair plastered by sweat to her face from the growing heat of both Sunset’s flames and the Kushanada’s blood. “Not really, no. They’re immortal, relentless, and the physical equal of at least some of us Captains. They don’t have any special powers or unique abilities, if that’s any consolation? Just lots of brute force and their weapons.”

As if to give proof to her words, Sunset saw some of the wounds on the flailing arm and hand start to heal up, and she growled, “Oh for the love of-! Twilight, can you teleport Rarity clear of all this?”

At her question, Twilight had already been busy gathering a huge amount of arcane energy, which swirled in heavy droplets of purple light around the tip of a reishi arrow drawn taut within her bow. The M-Cell within her Hexenfaust pumped more power through the bow, and Twilight opened fire. The resulting arrow flashed down in a streak of violet light, and impacted hard upon the arm, right next to where Amore’s Kido summoned pillars were embedded. From the arrow spread multiple, layered arcane circles that wrapped around the entire arm and hand of the Kushanada, extending fields of paralyzing magical force, and momentarily halting the arm’s movements.

“Ah, the triple-layering on the binding agents worked wonders,” Twilight commented to herself, “And looks like the M-Cells added the extra stabilizing effect needed to keep all of the spells going for a longer duration. Great! Oh! Um, right, teleporting! I’ll try.”

There was a horrific, reverberating bellow from within the gate. The Kushanada’s arms flexed, muscles bulging as it strained against Twilight’s spell circles and Amore’s binding Kido. Sunset saw the misshapen shadow of its main body draw closer as another hand reached the edge of the Gates and slammed its fingers across the threshold. A blunt, ugly and jawless skull with a swept back, inhuman cranium. Nothing but two merciless yellow pits of light burned within the skull’s eye sockets, and somehow without any apparent mouth the Kushanada let out another furious bellow.

“Oh... oh my,” Fluttershy said, breathless, and redoubled her efforts to help Applejack and Rainbow Dash close the Gates, but the Kushanada’s bulk was making that difficult, and things were getting worse, for all of them could now see the shadowed hulks of two more Kushanada approaching from the depths of Hell beyond. Fluttershy took a deep breath and her eyes flared into solid blue pools of light. From her halo bands of gold light flickered down and wrapped around her physical arms. She then thrust those forwards, generating six spectral palm strikes that landed right atop the Kushanada’s skull.

“Begone and leave us in peace!” Fluttershy commanded, and for an instant or two the Kushanada reeled back. Sunset took advantage of that moment of weakness and went right for it’s face, gripping Hokori tightly as she drew upon her black flames. This was probably the best shot to knock this bastard right on his ass.

“Kuroihi Moegara!” (Blackfire Cinders)

Her right hand sent shivers of pain up her arm as the thick rivers of obsidian fire ran up her Zanpaktou’s hilt and covered her orange flames in purest darkness and consuming heat beyond any conventional concept of fire. With one heavy, vertical strike she cut a line of melting darkness across the Kushanada’s face, and saw the skull partially split. It howled and fell backwards, drawing back its hand and crashing into its two shadowed fellows coming up behind it.

Still holding the black flames and ignoring the pain in her hand, Sunset shouted to her friends, “Get the Gates closed. Twilight, get Rarity out of here!”

As an experiment, she tried slicing into the chains still attached to Rarity with her black flames. It was harder than she would have liked, but she at least saw her blade manage to sever two or three of them. But there were dozens of chains holding Rarity, and Sunset’s hand might turn to ash by the time she could cut through them all. Well, if that’s what it took, so be it! She started to slice more chains, while Twilight flew down to Rarity’s side.

“Grab hold of me,” Twilight said, placing one hand on Rarity’s shoulder. Rarity gulped and obliged as best she could, the chains making any movement difficult. Grasping Twilight’s hand, Rarity nodded to her friend, while Twilight closed her eyes and focused her mind upon the teleportation spell.

Purple light flared, and in a poof, both she and Rarity vanished.

However, Sunset saw the chains attached to Rarity didn’t go slack. Instead they moved, staying as taut as ever, while being yanked downward as if Rarity had been taken down into the ground. Which was probably the case as Sunset recalled Twilight mentioning something about portals down there. But did that mean the chains of Hell just stayed attached to Rarity even when teleported elsewhere?

Then there was this incredible groaning sound, like a breaking mountain, and Sunset turned to see to her chilling spine that the Gates of Hell themselves were moving, flying downward at high speed. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were thrown off, although both swiftly recovered and started to fly after them. With little choice, Sunset, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy followed suit, trying to keep up with the now very mobile Gates of Hell that seemed quite determined to chase their friend down.

----------

Chaos reigned between Discord and Medley. With every swing of Discord’s Zanpaktou, he sent ripples of impossibility and disorder flying towards not only Medley herself, but in an ever more intense pattern in the air around her. It was getting to the point where the air was starting to shimmer with waves of prism light, and the effects of his Zanpaktou’s power was starting to rack up.

Medley saw it first in the way the air stopped filling her lungs properly, and how the reishi she flew around on stopped being quite so easy to utilize. Her vision was growing more unreliable as light no longer behaved properly, and by the time she ran into a solid block of air that no longer thought of there being a difference between “solid” and “gas” forms, she knew she’d probably been taking it too easy on Discord.

“That Zanpaktou of yours is a real nuisance,” she commented without amusement, leaping off of the “solid” air and focusing for a moment on Discord’s motions, just as the man was trying to make a bee line for all of the drama occurring with those girls and the Gate that had finally been summoned.

All it took was a slight adjustment to the “memory” of the space around Discord to place herself in front of him, no Flash Step needed. It was simply as if she’d always been there, waiting for him, and she could remember doing that, for her Zanpaktou affected her mind as much as it did the memories of those around her or the area she was in. She cut hard, aiming to sever Discord’s sword arm and rid herself of his troublesome Zanpaktou, but she had to give credit to the wily bastard, he could react far faster than most at his level could. Her cut was met with cloth, her blade tearing a decent sized hole in the arm sleeve of his billowing robes, but not quite reaching flesh.

His eyes twinkled at her, but she knew that spark hid his fear, his anxiety. Having already wounded him before, she could all but browse his memories at will, and knew he was kicking himself for not foreseeing that Glory would try to send the girl named Rarity to Hell. To Medley it was a pretty obvious conclusion, but that was because she knew Glory better than Discord. In Glory’s head, Hell was inescapable. Putting Rarity there was supposedly a final nail in the coffin of any plans to use those girls as a weapon against the Zero Plan.

Medley doubted it would go as Glory intended, but for now it was clear Discord wanted nothing more than to go save that girl. And Medley had no intention of allowing him to do so. The seemingly hardened “air” that made up her Zanpaktou’s blade was merely a byproduct of the continuous non-existent nature of it. Her sword had no “blade”, but rather an absence of self, with which she could fill in memories from her own mind or that of anyone she struck with the edge of the non-blade, which itself acted as a void cable of deflecting or cutting through most things. Once a memory was set, it could be cast out into the field the Zanpaktou projected around her, creating a physical reality in which that memory was real.

In simpler terms, while she didn’t alter a person’s direct memory, or affect relative time, she would project physical memories all around her, at will.

This meant that changing her position was as easy as placing herself wherever her own, or a victim’s, memory allowed themselves to be. And since Discord had been over every inch of his training area while constructing it, it meant Medley had the run of the place, instantly able to project either herself or a “memory” of herself to any such location. She did so without even thinking about it, creating two memories of herself in front of Discord as she closed in on him from behind. Her two memories cut swift trails towards Discord’s head, while she came in from a lower angle, cutting at his legs. He gripped his hat and flung himself into a horizontal angle, spinning with one leg kicking out to catch one of her memory’s arms to push her sword away while swiping with his Zanpaktou of chaotic rainbow colors to deflect the other memory’s sword.

However this still left the “real” Medley free to adjust her swing higher to compensate for his dodge. Blood kissed the air as Discord grunted, leaping higher with a Flash Step as he now had to favor one leg, his left one bearing a nasty cut across the calf.

“Look who’s talking,” he said, whistling as he tapped his injured leg and nodded at the two “memory” Medley’s, “You say my Zanpaktou is trouble, but I’d say yours is a fair bit worse. You’re not even trying right now, are you? Or are you worried about losing control?”

The last was said with his eyes turning to yellow, deadly slits, and Medley felt herself shiver slightly. While she couldn’t comprehend Glory’s interest in this man on any romantic level, she could at least understand why her elder sister was interested in Discord’s intellect and power. While he was far flung from the lineage of the Soul Queen, he possessed a keen mind unlike many that existed even in the days of the gods. In only a few minutes of fighting, he already seemed to grasp the nature of her Zanpaktou’s power... including its weaknesses.

“I am,” she admitted, seeing no point in denying it, seeing as how Discord clearly had things figured out, “And yes, I’m holding back. All I’m supposed to do is keep you from interfering with the Gates of Hell. That was my sole assignment.”

Discord’s eyes grew even more dangerous, as if a sinister light was coming to life within those yellow on red pits. “Glory fears my girls that much, does she? She’d go this far, just to get rid of even one of them? Consign them to that wretched place, just like that poor boy from the Star Family?”

The aura of his Zanpaktou flowed from the hilt of the sword and into his body, wreathing him in it’s scintillating glow of dancing colors as his eyes were shadowed by his hat, “I don’t appreciate the way in which every attempt I’ve made to do well by those girls has only gotten them deeper in trouble. My quest for change irrevocably damaged their mother’s lives, and now theirs, too. I accept my own soul deserves some level of damnation for the trouble I’ve caused, but I will not let others suffer that fate in my place, Medley.”

She couldn’t help but wear a sardonic, sighing smile at that, “Little late to be lamenting, isn’t it? You chose to give them power. No point complaining about the consequences of that now.”

“Perhaps not, but I can still do what I can to balance the scales in their favor.”

He unleashed a spreading wave of prism light, but not at Medley herself, or any of her memories. Instead he sent it out around him in a spreading bubble of oily colors that filled a wide space around both him and Medley. She frowned at the display, and the way in which the air started to flicker with lines of what looked like infected patches of static, as if a computer screen was cracked and glitching. Medley knew she had to get more serious, now, before Discord filled the space with so much of that rule unbinding power of his that she couldn’t project memories without risking serious issues with her own mind.

It was really her Zanpaktou’s one real drawback. The memories she projected weren’t fake in any way. What happened to them became very real memories in her own mind. If too many of them were adversely affected simultaneously, it’d start to become a problem. This went double for the space around her, which was in effect one giant memory field.

Discord's power, if he sent out enough of it to disrupt everything around him, would unbalance her own Zanpaktou. Had their reiatsu levels been more equal, she’d probably have already lost. The fact that Medley’s raw spiritual pressure was much higher was what was keeping the balance tipped squarely in her favor, despite the problematic nature of Discord’s abilities. Of course neither of them were going all out, yet. He had not activated his Bankai, nor had she invoked the name of her own Zanpaktou. She knew Discord wouldn’t use his Bankai while those he cared for were nearby, due to its nature, and she wasn’t going to call upon her Zanpaktou because doing so would shatter the already weak wards around the shop and have dire consequences to the city.

Granted, she didn’t necessarily care about the city that much, but the less reason she gave Glory to complain about later, the better.

Regardless, it meant she and Discord were stuck in this awkwardly intense slap fight where they were still very much trying to take each other down, but couldn’t afford to throw any genuine haymakers.

But cleverness and precision could often beat out raw power, and both of them were experts at it. It was a question of who could outmaneuver who first.

Discord’s move, throwing out a large wave of his Zanpaktou’s sickly, eye twisting color patterns may have disrupted the space around him, but it also put Medley out of his view for a moment. She used this to relocate, so that when the prismatic energies dissipated for a moment, Discord saw nothing where she’d just been. Wily as he was, Discord didn’t stand still, even if he couldn’t spot where his foe had gone. He saw the struggle with the Gates of Hell happening some distance away, easily recognizing the ominous stone doors. He knew he had to get there, and reached into his robes to grab something while he shot forward with a Flash Step, trying to get clear of Medley’s range.

His sharp eyes caught the barest hint of movement to his left, and he cut to the right to dodge as something shot by. A red Kido beam? It was the same ruby shaft of light that his own personally designed Kido had created!

Suddenly he found that multiple versions of him were filling the air, over a dozen Discords, all mimicking the same motions. Some did flicker with static, Discord’s power disrupting Medley’s Zanpaktou ability, but not enough to cause all of the memory copies of him from enacting the Kido spell he’d fired at her earlier. This was in no way weaker than his own beam, for the memory that Medley created was as potent as she herself could remember it.

Discord bobbed and weaved like a high speed leaf in a storm, evading laser dot beams of light that had the power to readily punch through his defenses. The memory clones vanished when they finished their Kido invocations, but they’d succeeded in driving Discord to dodge downward, where Medley waited. Or rather a memory of Medley, from just a minute ago when she’d clashed with Ditzy.

This Medley was already enacting her own personal Shunko, the hard spherical shell of blue reiatsu, like a blazing cerulean comet, flared up at Discord from below. Discord halted and prepared to evade to the side, but then crimson light came from that very direction as another memory, this one of Ditzy herself, utilizing her specialized Shunko, rushed him from a side angle.

The pair of Shunko wielding memories impacted with Discord in a terrific burst of light and force, shredding him to pieces...

Or rather what appeared to be him. The “Discord” that was struck burst like a balloon, bits of rubbery material floating down like confetti. Nearby, the real Medley, who’d taken cover behind some loose boulders on the ground, grimaced in irritation at the sight of what had obviously been a fake Discord. Probably some special, expendable version of a gigai that mimicked Discord’s reiatsu.

But then when had he gone to stealth himself?

“The moment I surrounded myself with that wave of power from my Zanpaktou, if you were wondering.”

Medley, the moment she heard Discord talking, had thrown herself upward with a Flash Step, but Discord had anticipated the move and sent a focused beam of chaos energy in that very direction, catching her side as she tried to slip away. Medley felt her senses go wild, even as her reiatsu pushed back on his power to keep it from throwing her whole body’s equilibrium off. It was enough, however, for her to be slowed as Discord appeared, his hand tearing away a slice of air like pulling aside a curtain. It was a stealth Kido, probably enacted immediately after she’d lost sight of him earlier.

Now he stepped out and pressed the attack on her while she was off balance, his blade shifting and coiling like a slick of liquid gasoline as he flung rainbow patterns at her in a rapid, close range barrage of strikes she had no choice but to parry.

Weird gouts of prism energy sparked between her blade and his as she jumped back from his blows, Discord keeping close to her with every Flash Step she made. It’d been awhile since she’d been on the defensive, but Medley kept her cool and even as more of his chaos power seeped into her reiatsu from every clash of her sword on his, she didn’t break focus.

She was hardly out of tricks, or memories to make use of.

All it took was a spare moment to remember herself to a new location, reorienting herself some distance up and away from Discord. There, she held her Zanpaktou out in front of her and began to spin it. Flicks of distorted air fell away from her non-blade in a spreading circle. Most of the time the quick memories she created were very ephemeral and temporary, which was partly why Discord’s power made them so unstable.

But if she took some time to let shards of her actual Zanpaktou form the core of a memory, it became much stronger and able to function without direction. This dead weaken her actual Zanpaktou until the shards returned, but it was oftentimes more potent to split her power in this way, as long as the memories in question would be effective against their target.

Discord didn’t seem to have many weaknesses, but he did clearly care about certain people.

Discord, having seen Medley vanish and sensed her reappearance, had opted to get distance and aim to get closer to the site of struggle against the Gates of Hell. He sensed the girls’ growing desperation, their reiatsu surging wildly in their fight to protect Rarity from the Gates’ relentless clutches. His heart hammered, his desire to get to their side and aid them making it hard to be as detached as he knew he needed his mind to be against someone like Medley.

Fire blasted down from above, and Discord leaped to the side to avoid the melting wave as it created a molten hole in the ground where he’d just been. A blast of multiple lightning strikes then forced him to dodge the other direction, right into the path of a golden lance that nearly took his head off before he blocked the blow and was sent reeling back by the strength of it.

He then had to duck a massive pink hammer that struck the ground and turned it into a rubbery wave that destabilized the ground with its cartoon physics and bounced him upwards. This made him an easy target for the cascade of crystalline red weapons and golden, translucent palm strikes from dozens of hands that converged on him from either side. Spun rapidly, creating a tornado swirl of prismatic light, the chaotic energy within dispersing the attacks.

“Oh, now this is cruel of you, Medley...” he muttered, as he saw that now surrounding him were six all too familiar faces.

Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy stood facing him now. Memory copies, but ones with enough power to certainly at least approach what the genuine articles were capable of.

From higher up in the air, Medley huffed her chagrin, “Cruel my ass. You’re far too wily for me to do anything less, and you know it. I got to study those girls and their powers plenty during the Everfree fracas. These memories should be a decent approximation. But do let me know if I’m missing any details.”

Discord just closed his eyes and sighed, “Their spirits, for one. It’s painful looking at these humorless copies. The girls are far more lively...” His power surged, and his eyes hardened, “And I must get to them, right after I smash these poor imitations to pieces.”

But even as he said that, a part of him was deathly afraid he wouldn’t make it in time.

----------

Upon the roof of Discord’s shop, Clover bent her will towards healing Ditzy Doo. Healing Kido, or Kaido as the proper term went, lacked the formalized invocations of Hado or Bakkudo, and instead consisted of various methods in which one extended reiatsu into either a spiritual or physical body to aid, or in some cases force the process of repair. For as simplistic as it appeared from the outside, often just holding one or both hands out to an injury and coating in a glow of blue or green energy, the actual individual doing the healing had a difficult task. Too little energy and one was essentially wasting reiryuku to no effect. Too much energy and it was all too easy to do more harm than good as flesh tried to knit itself rapidly and in warped ways that could be worse than the original wound. True masters of Kaido knew how to walk the line and guide that healing process, or invented their own workarounds to make things go smoother.

Clover was skilled, but knew she was no master, and Ditzy had taken a bad hit. On the outside the bruising around her abdomen was enough to make Clover wince, but the internal damage was even worse. Whatever had hit Ditzy hadn’t just been a raw force of impact. It had somehow spun and twisted energies inside Ditzy, like hundreds of individual swirls of warped muscle and bone. Clover was gradually mending the worst of it, but it’d be a miracle if Ditzy got back up anytime soon.

“Uggn...” Ditzy’s eyes snapped open, and the woman nearly bolted upright, scaring Clover half to death and making her let out a brief yelp. “Where am- aaaugh! Oh, oh that’s a lot of broken everything.”

Ditzy laid back down, then tried to sit up again when she heard an explosion from nearby. The building next door had a wall blown out by a set of wandering, explosive bubbles, courtesy of Bubbles herself as she leaped through the rooms on the warehouse’s upper floor, chased by Screwloose and Screwball. Other parts of the building’s roof blew off, from a barrage of rockets from Screwloose’s weapon by the sound of things. Then Clover heard Screwball laughing in maniacal glee as a Cero went off and melted another section of wall.

“S-sounds like they’re having fun,” Ditzy said, past teeth clenched in pain, “Who’s the new chick?”

“Called herself Bubbles. Claimed to be an Attendant to one of the Zero Division,” Clover said.

“Wait, is that Chappy I see down there floating inside a bubble?” asked Ditzy.

“Hiiiiiiiii!” said Chappy, waving up at the rooftop from where she remained trapped, “Hope your feeling better, Ditzy!”

Ditzy grunted and coughed up some blood before waving back, “Never better. Speaking of which, got to get back down there. D...ugh... Discy needs me.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Clover said, trying and failing to hold Ditzy down as the woman forced herself to her feet, “You’re still in horrific condition! If you try to move around too much, let alone fight with internal injuries like that, you’ll die!”

“No way. I won’t croak to something like this,” Ditzy said, pulling away from Clover’s grasp and stumbling towards the hole her body had made in the roof just a minute or so earlier. She wiped blood from her chin and lurched forward like a blood coated zombie. Ditzy raised her hand above her head and started to reform her Hollow mask.

Interrupting her, however, was a set of six bright yellow beams of light that flew around her and snapped in around her waist, pinning her in place and halting her movement. Her mask failed to form and Ditzy let out a pained gasp as the binding panes of pale yellow light held her firm. She managed to look back at Clover, who approached with one finger still pointed from the Kido she’d unleashed while her other hand glowed soft green as she resumed healing Ditzy.

“Rikujokoro, without even speaking the invocation name?” Ditzy said weakly, slumping a bit as the binding Kido kept her rooted to the spot, “You’ve gotten a lot stronger, Clover.”

Clover brushed some of her green strands of hair from her sweat soaked face and offered a wane smile at Ditzy’s words, “Not as strong as I wish I was. Even now, all I can do is pray and hope they’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t as if she had to explain who ‘they’ were, and Ditzy nodded in understanding, “You do all you can. Even if I’m kinda ticked you’re stopping me from going down there, I get it. Did the younger kids get out okay?”

“Yes, they’re clear. It seems like Screwloose and Screwball can at least keep that Attendant occupied,” this said as half of the next door warehouse collapsed on itself from the continued fighting within. “I sort of suspected they were like you, but never knew for sure until they brought out those masks.”

“Heheh, ow, well Discy and I kind of encouraged them to keep it on the down low. They don’t got my level of control, and can only keep their Hollowfied state going for a couple of minutes. Huh, how long has this fight been going on, by the way?”

At Ditzy’s question, Clover looked down to see Bubbles standing atop the rubble of the next door warehouse, confronting Screwloose and Screwball as the pair flanked her from either side. Notable, their Hollow masks were starting to crack, not quite falling apart yet, but clearly reaching their limits.

“Too long, I think,” Clover replied, glancing between her own hand that was healing Ditzy, and the fight, “They might need my help down there.”

“Then go help them. I promise I won’t run off. Not that I could in my condition, with this Kido locking me up tight.” Ditzy’s words sounded sincere enough to Clover’s ears, but she still had a sneaking suspicion that the woman might try to break free of her Kido the moment Clover turned her back. Even if she did, a part of Clover almost wanted Ditzy to be able to do so, because Clover could sense how desperate things still were, down below in the training grounds. There especially was a sensation of heightened danger from the reiatsu of Clover’s friends, and an ominously familiar reiatsu that Clover recognized from the times she’d seen the Gates of Hell arrive to claim a Hollow she’d purified.

What’s happening down there? she wondered, not without a healthy dose of apprehension. But seeing this woman, Bubbles, still standing so prominently against Screwloose and Screwball, with Ditzy badly injured and Chappy still trapped... Clover knew she had no choice. She had to stay here, even if half of her heart was screaming at her to go to Sunset’s side.

With no words but just a simple nod to Ditzy, Clover leaped through the air with a Flash Step. She appeared behind Bubbles, on the opposite side of Screwloose and Screwball, and raised her left hand, palm up, in preparation to throw out more Kido. Bubbles cast an unconcerned look back at her from atop the pile of rubble she stood upon, her metal scepter spinning in lazy arcs in her right hand.

“Decided to join us? I don’t object. Lady Minty prefers parties with more guests. Still, you’re a curious Soul Reaper. You’re not wearing a Captain’s haori or a Lieutenant’s badge, so I imagine you must be Third Seat or lesser... yet your reiatsu is far too strong for that. Who are you?”

“I’m under no obligation to answer your questions,” Clover responded, and really was in no mood for this woman’s casual banter, anyway. She didn’t waste another second, and from her palm she focused her spiritual energy. The rubble around her began to rattle as it was outlined in green light, which matched the energy glowing in her outstretched palm.

“Hado Number Fifty Seven: Daichi Tenyo!” (Ground Swell Dance)

Dozens of chunks of rubble, infused with spiritual power, now levitated and flew at Bubbles with extreme speed and precision. The woman shot upwards to dodge the initial barrage, while more chunks of rubble already waited for her above, having been sent up by Clover the moment the other pieces of rubble had attacked. These ones now shot downward, save for a few that spread out around Bubbles. In response, she waved her scepter and generated a string of connected bubbles that remained attached to the scepter, like a long whip. With surprising strength, Bubbles whipped this chain of bubbles around herself in a dizzying pattern, smashing the rubble chunks that came at her. The bubbles she’d created were harder than steel, and vibrated with her spiritual energy, making them effectively giant bludgeons.

“Hah! This is a fun game! Throw more Kido at me. I don’t know why you don’t have a Zanpaktou, but these spells are neat.”

“Glad you think so,” Clover said, giving Screwloose and Screwball a meaningful look to hold back for a moment. Taking the meaning of the look, the pair both leaped back, understanding that Clover had a plan and didn’t want them striking until the moment was right. This helped them conserve energy anyway, maintaining their Hollow masks for a bit longer while preparing to make their move when Clover provided an opening.

Bubbles didn’t intend to stay still and let this happen, flipping her whip of bubbles towards Clover. As this happened, Clover saw that the color at the “tip” of the whip changed, the bubble going from blue to red. Correctly guessing that this meant trouble, she Flash Stepped back just in time to avoid the explosion as the bubble struck the ground and detonated, pelting Clover with fragments of rock in the process. Not losing sight of her target, Clover gathered spirit energy in her right hand while keeping her left palm out, chanting Kido spells rapidly.

“Bakudo Number Sixty Two: Hyapporankan.” (Hundred Steps Fence)

“Hado Number Forty Six: Gaki Rekko.” (Raging Light Fang)

Almost simultaneously did she throw out a violet glowing bar of light that split into a cluster of similar rods that filled the air and rushed Bubbles, while also pointing with her other hand and generating a circular plane of brilliant emerald light that then shot out a dozen thin but powerful green beams that cut at sharp right angles towards the Attendant.

“Useless! Useless! Useless!” Bubbles chanted, moving like a ribbon dancer as she twirled her bubble whip around, deflecting the binding Kido rods, and expertly weaving through the destructive beams of green light. “You cast those spells fast, but you’ll never hit me with- huh?”

She looked down at her chest, where a small glop of blue, spherical energy was now stuck to her chest like a bit of bubblegum. Bubbles had no idea how it had gotten there, but that was mostly because she’d been so focused on deflecting or dodging the other two Kido that she never noticed the third spell that Clover cast, this time without resorting to even an invocation. Granted it was hard to do this was powerful Kido, which this was not, but it didn’t have to be.

The sphere of blue goo expanded rapidly into a thick, rubbery sheet, with strands that extended outward to latch onto whatever objects Clover intended... which in this case was the handful of remaining rubble chunks she’d still left levitating around, and Bubbles had unwisely ignored. This was Bakudo Number Thirty Seven, Tsuriboshi (Hanging Star). Normally this Kido was just for simple things like catching falling people or objects, creating a safety net of sorts, or in emergency situations it could act as a barrier against incoming attacks. Clover, in this instance, attached the strands of the rubbery “net” to the rubble chunks, which now spun around Bubbles rapidly, wrapping the net around the woman like a cocoon. This also ended with the rubble chunks themselves slamming into and sticking fast to the cocoon, keeping it levitating in the air as Bubbles struggled inside.

“Hah! This stuff won’t hold me still for very long, you know!?” Bubbles taunted, but Clover just shrugged.

“I know. It doesn’t have to hold for long. Just long enough. Screwloose, Screwball, sic her!”

“What are we, dogs?” Screwball whined, but Screwloose just laughed and went, “Arf, arf!” while leaping into the attack with gusto. She slammed her rocket launcher right into the bound Bubbles and the weapon’s many barrels glowed red as she fired a set of point blank, Cero enhanced rockets. Multiple explosions of crimson sent Bubbles and the net she was bound in bouncing skyward like an out of control pinball, and Screwball herself flew up to meet it. Cherry red power glowed around Screwball’s bat as she held it over her head for a massive overswing that smashed with a concussion of ruby force right atop Bubbles. The woman went flying down even faster than she’d been blasted upwards, and impacted in the courtyard of Discord’s shop with the cratering force of a missile.

As dust rose from the crater, Clover jumped back to the courtyard to check to see if the woman was down for the count. She took it as an encouraging sign that the bubble holding Chappy suddenly popped harmlessly, depositing the Mod Soul neatly on the courtyard lawn.

“Whoa! I’m okay, and all my beautiful and sexy Chappy parts are intact!” Chappy declared, checking herself over. She gave Clover a thumbs up, “Good job there, Clover! You’re the best!”

“Hey, we helped too! I’d even say we kind of did most of the work,” Screwball said, landing nearby just as her Hollow mask started to crack and flake off of her face. Shouldering her spiked club, she smiled at Clover, “But I’ll admit, you really took charge there.”

“Heheh, our little Third Seat is all grown up,” Screwloose grinned, her own mask also dissipating from her features, “You’ll be gunning for that Captain seat in no time at this rate.”

Clover let out a sighing laugh, shaking her head, “Not sure I’d be interested in it, even if it was on offer, but... let’s save the banter until we know the danger is passed. Even if we just defeated this ‘Attendant’, the real danger remains below.”

“Oh you girls have no idea...”

They all grew tense as Bubbles floated up from the bottom of the crater. She was definitely badly injured from their assault. Blood coated her face, and her clothing was a tattered wreak showing bleeding injuries all over her body. Bubbles spat out blood and ran a hand through her frayed hair, licking more blood off of her lips, “Lady Minty and her divine siblings have this world’s fate, and those of every soul dwelling in it, in the palm of their hands. Resisting them is like trying to resist the warmth of the sun or the pull of gravity. You should be thanking them for their mercy in instructing me not to kill any of you, let alone dealing with you themselves. Now, I shall-”

A foot slammed into the side of Bubble’s face at marvelously insane speed, catapulting her like a professionally kicked soccer ball straight into a nearby wall. Everyone blinked at the sight of Ditzy Doo, now free of Clover’s Kido, standing on the air, having just delivered said kick.

“Geeze, tell it to someone who has time to listen to that bullcrap! Monologuing twerp!” Ditzy sternly stated, then doubled over and coughed up some blood, “Oh ow, okay, maybe should’ve held back a bit on that.”

“Nah, I think you kicked her just hard enough,” said Screwloose, while Clover rushed over to Ditzy, who was now floating down to the edge of the crater that Bubbles had left.

“Didn’t I tell you not to overdo it?” Clover admonished, quickly resuming her healing Kido on Ditzy, “Breaking out of my binding spell like that must have hurt.”

“Y-yeah, think I’ve got to...mmph...take a breather after that,” Ditzy said, but gave Discord’s shop a worried look, “But I hate having to sit here. Whatever is going on down there, it isn’t good.”

“Well we’ll worry about that when we can,” said Screwloose, heading over to the now thoroughly unconscious, at the very least, Bubbles. “In the meantime, if you didn’t outright kill this dumb twit, me and Screwball are going to tie her up and lock her in the bossman’s strongest cell. Whatever happens down below, at least we’ll have someone to interrogate after all this.”

Clover wasn’t going to comment on whether or not it was a smart idea to take one of the Zero Division’s personal servants prisoner. It might just be more trouble than it was worth. That said, they’d have to worry about that after the crisis was over, and from what she was still sensing from within the shop, things were still hanging on a knife’s edge.

----------

Chaos reigned within the training grounds underneath Discord’s shop. Sunset had no time to pay anything else any mind aside from the Gates of Hell trying to take one of her dearest friends away from her, and so she descended after them when she saw the Gates fly downward towards the location Twilight had likely teleported Rarity to.

In said location, the carved out cavern Twilight had made underground to form her escape portals, she appeared in a flash of purple light alongside Rarity. Next to the pair, Sugarcoat stood with her Quincy bow of smooth pearl drawn and aimed upwards. Sky blue light bathed the chamber from Sugarcoat, who’s body now was sporting twin wings of reishi energy, shaped like long, bent rods along the bottom of which were affixed a shifting sheet of connected hexagons. Her halo was also hexagon shaped, and from the front end of it descended a pair of spokes that then created a visor of light that layered over the magitech visor that Twilight had created for Sugarcoat.

“You’re in Vollstandig?” Twilight said in surprise upon seeing Sugarcoat. Without looking towards her or Rarity, Sugarcoat aimed up with her bow and fired several potent arrows of hardened reishi in quick succession, adjusting her aim slightly with each shot. The arrows vanished into the cavern’s ceiling without slowing down or inflicting damage on the rock, courtesy of Sugarcoat’s Schrift, the X-Ray.

“I needed the reiatsu boost to have a hope of doing any harm to my target,” Sugarcoat replied, “While you all are busy with that weird gate, Coloratura is moving to engage the guy with the saxophone. I’m providing support fire, or at least I was until you showed up.”

“Damn, I didn’t even see Coloratura engage Blossom,” Twilight said, then shook her head and grabbed Rarity, who remained heavily bound by the clinking, semi-transparent chains of Hell, “I need to get you through the portal, fast. Sugarcoat, cover us.”

“No problem.”

“W-wait, Twilight,” said Rarity, barely able to stand as the chains around her stayed tight as ever, and even seemed to be trying to pull her towards the cavern ceiling, “What about everyone else?”

“We need to get you in the clear first. I’ll come back for the others-” Twilight started to say, the flames of magical power around her eyes intensifying as her voice grew more desperate, and for a moment sounded more like Midnight, “No time to argue this! My magic might be able to close those Gates, but not while we’re stuck trying to keep you out of them at the same time.”

She started to haul Rarity towards one of the open portals, which showed a view of the back lawn of Twilight’s family manor beyond the portal’s swirling, violet edges. However Twilight barely managed to drag Rarity a single pace before the whole cavern was rocked by a horrendous tremor. Twilight saw the walls crack apart, and was able to throw up a protective shell around herself, Rarity, and Sugarcoat just before the entire area around them broke apart under a massive, crashing force.

The three girls looked about as rock and dust cleared, partially pushed away by Twilight’s magical telekinesis. The cavern was gone, and now they stood at the bottom of a deep crater made by the impact of the Gates of Hell literally dropping on top of them. No more than twenty feet away, the Gates stood amid the rock and rubble they’d just made, and now three or four Kushanada hands reached out of the Gate’s dark depths, most wielding cleavers the size of dump trucks, but one of them grabbed upon Rarity’s chains and yanked.

“Aaaaah!” Rarity shouted as she was pulled through the air, and on instinct her whirlpool of blood flowed in front of her and extended massive spikes of red crystal and locked the chains in place, at least for a moment. More ruby crystal flowed out along the chains, some of it wrapping protectively around Rarity like a flower bud, while towards the Kushanada a tumorous growth of dozens of different weapons swelled forth and slashed at the hands and arms of Hell’s guardians.

Although wounded and bleeding by the assault, they hands were relentless, smashing crystal constructs without regard for harm to themselves. Mighty cleavers crushed the crystal spikes locking the chains in place, and soon Rarity was being tugged closer to Hell’s embrace.

Sugarcoat flew back, her wings buzzing, “For the record Twilight, this is the second most screwed up thing I’ve seen since I became friends with you.”

Her bow shot out solid, air shattering arrows at the hands, while Twilight joined her with a hail of purple ignited arrows that flashed with arcane flame. Yet the Kushanada were working in tandem now, the hands wielding cleavers using those bulky weapons like shields to guard their comrade whose hand kept pulling Rarity closer to the Gates.

Rarity dug her heels, literally, into the ground, extending ruby spikes of crystal from her feet to try and ground herself. It slowed her down, but only a little.

Fortunately it was just long enough for Sunset to arrive with Rarity’s remaining friends, who fell upon the Gates with a fury.

“Get off of her!” Sunset’s growling roar was near feral with desperation and rage as she fell like a black bolt of lightning, Hokori all but pure darkness in her hand as black fire surged from it. Sunset felt the strain in her soul, and sensed that Hikari was struggling to keep her hand intact from using so much of the black flame. The shield was burning gold with light, pouring what restorative power it could into Sunset’s hand, which still burned with terrible pain. Still, the black flames around her Zanpaktou was able to sever a few more chains around Rarity, each slice getting at least one or two.

Yet for each chain severed, another and more flew out of Hell’s depths.

“Close, damn ya!” Applejack shouted, throwing her lance behind her and using it like a rocket booster alongside all of her other jets as she planted a double-booted kick upon one of the doors, causing the Gates to close slightly, but only just slightly as another Kushanada hand clamped upon the Gates, it’s giant muscles straining against Applejack’s own hellish strength.

“You’re not taking our Rarity!” Rainbow Dash stated, moving so fast that she was practically everywhere at once, a iridescent streak of lightning blue that sliced and stabbed with the force of entire stormfronts upon the Kushanada limbs. She even managed to crack and break apart one of their cleavers amid her barrage of attacks, and Rainbow Dash didn’t let up, flaring her wings wide and casting forth hundreds of forks of lightning from them to flare into the Gates and blast at the colossal forms of the Kushanada beyond.

“You’re all under arrest for harassing a lady against her will!” Pinkie Pie shouted, or rather dozens of her did as a bunch of Pinkie copies in FBI uniforms and tactical gear came busting in out various doors that hadn’t been there before, or crashing literally through the air as if it were a drywall ceiling, and like a scrambling pile of ants they started trying to throw on oversized, comically gigantic handcuffs on the Kushanada.

Unfortunately the joke was lost on the servants of Hell, and the handcuffs only slightly slowed them down as they started to cleave at both the Pinkie Pies and Rainbow Dash. To compound things, none of this stopped the chains from their unending, single minded pull upon Rarity herself, and by now it was as if the chains were getting smarter. Every time Rarity tried to conjure more crystal weapons, or summoned down some of her knights, the chains reacted like living things, moving with viperish speed to bind and crush any crystal construct that got close.

By now Rarity was nearly at the Gate’s very threshold, and a set of six golden hands wrapped around her as Fluttershy gripped Rarity close from behind. Fluttershy shoved her spiritual power into the chains themselves, trying to inject her reiatsu, and her will, into them. There was an intense struggle as her warmth and light clashed harshly against a seemingly limitless sea of relentless power that seared like hellfire itself. In that moment Fluttershy could feel it, the will of Hell.

She understood that she and her friends weren't fighting a group of separate individuals. The Gates, the chains, the Kushanada, they were all part of a collective force of will that was ingrained into the very construct of reality that was Hell. Fluttershy could barely grasp the full meaning, but she felt as if Hell was a singular entity, some insanely vast and unimaginably powerful spiritual construct bound by one mind and willpower. It was like a Zanpaktou, in a way, but on a scale so much larger it was like comparing a rowboat to the Titanic.

Fluttershy struggled to hold on, trying to test her will against that of Hell, and for a few moments she actually held out, forcing the chains to cease dragging her friend away.

But the strain was tearing her soul, and Rarity sensed it, being closest and being held but Fluttershy.

“Darling, no...” Rarity said, and as she did so she looked up, seeing her friends battling to protect her so desperately, and also seeing the pain it was causing them. Sunset’s right hand was smoking and sizzling under the burning agony of her black flames. Applejack was straining her armor to the point that it was starting to show tears and cracks as she tried to close even one of Hell’s mighty Gates. Rainbow Dash was moving so fast her Fullbring was having trouble compensating for the speed and blood was starting to leak from her nose and ears. Pinkie Pie, for all of her forced cheer, had a look of genuine fear in her eyes as she tried every lame pun under the sun to try and find some weakness in the Kushanada’s defenses. Twilight had a look of desperate calculation in her magic soaked eyes, and Rarity feared what the girl might do with such unpredictable power to try and save the day.

Worst of all, Rarity noticed how each of them were either latched on to her chains, were fighting close to them, or were literally ignoring that by now they were so far near the threshold to Hell that if her friends kept fighting like this, they might all get trapped with her, if the Gates closed upon her.

“...Let me go...” she whispered, trying to muster more strength past her fear.

“What was that Rarity? Hold on, we’ll get you free,” said Fluttershy, voice pained as her very soul struggled against the weight of Hell itself.

“Let me go!” Rarity said, trying to pitch her voice so all of them could hear, “If you keep this up, all of you will end up there with me, or worse!”

“What? Are you crazy?” Sunset said, slashing more chains, trying to deflect others that came flying out at her, “There’s no way we’re doing that!”

“Darlings, you must! Can’t you see this isn’t working!? Even if you get me away from here, the Gates will just follow!”

“But Rares, these stupid Cushy Nadas have to give up eventually!” Pinkie Pie said, turning to block one of the Kushanada’s cleaver strikes with her hammer, “They got to have, like, a time they clock off or something, right?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Rarity said, shaking her head, “I’m sorry, but I don’t see any other way. I won’t watch any of you get dragged in there with me, and I won’t watch you break yourselves trying to save me.”

“Rare, hun, what’re ya doin’!?” said Applejack with a spike of fright, sensing the reiatsu rise inside Rarity, and also seeing a large contingent of her crystalline knights descend around Fluttershy.

The knight’s grabbed Fluttershy, and started to pull her away from Rarity. In response, Fluttershy’s face went very... still, like a clean drift of untouched snow as she held Rarity close and said, “You don’t have to do this, Rarity.”

“I believe I do, Fluttershy. Don’t fret. I don’t intend to play gently with Hell.”

Fluttershy nodded, but her face was now awash with fresh tears, and she let herself be pulled away by Rarity’s Knights.

“No! I won’t let you do this!” Sunset leaped upon the chains around Rarity with a renewed vigor, voice hoarse with anger laden screams as she hacked at them. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie all leaped upon the chains as well, stabbing and hammering with their weapons in a desperate final attempt to break their friend free.

“Twilight... please, look after them for me,” Rarity said, looking up at the Quincy girl, who looked aghast at the request, but Rarity knew Twilight was a smart girl and would understand. She saw it, recognized it, in the other girl. Twilight had been through the wringer as bad or worse as any of them, and understood that necessity sometimes outweighed emotion. Rarity could see Twilight make the calculation and understand the situation. She’d been trying to force the Gates shut with magic already, and had even sensed she might succeed, but she’d also realized Rarity’s point. Even if they stopped the Gates for the moment, it would be a temporary solution, for Rarity was now marked. The Gates would chase her continuously until they got ahold of her.

Still, even if there was no stopping the Gates, Twilight was not about to let Hell have it’s way entirely. With eyes flaring bright, she cast a spell that sent a streak of purple down to alight upon Rarity, embedding something she hoped would prove helpful later on.

Meanwhile Rarity looked to her remaining friends that had not given up on trying to drag her away from the Gate’s looming embrace, and she put all of her effort into speaking with clarity, love, and most of all, sincerity. “Please, all of you, this isn’t the end of things. I promise you, I’ll find a way to escape. But this world and Equestria both need you here. We’ll find each other again, my word as a lady and fashionista.”

“Rarity... no, we can’t do squat without you around,” Rainbow Dash said, “I know I’d be one hundred percent less awesome without your cool head.”

“Ya can’t let ‘em have ya, hun, ya can’t,” Applejack pleaded, eyes wet, “I don’t wanna lose no one else from my family, an’ that includes you, Rares.”

“You picked the worst time to try being a comedian,” Pinkie Pie laughed, but it was a fearful sound as a mass of dark pink tendrils struggled in vain to pull and bite at the chains wrapped around her friend, “I mean, I know a lot about bad comedy, and you giving up is as terrible as jokes get.”

“We’re going to save you, Rarity, no matter what it takes!” Sunset promised, never once ceasing to slice, her bloodied, burned hand a blur of black flame as her Zanpaktou cut chain after chain. But Rarity saw that they were now between the doors, hanging on the precipice of Hell. Around her friends the Kushanada’s arms rose, cleavers bearing down, even as Twilight and Sugarcoat’s arrows slammed into them to try and stay them for even a moment longer. Twilight’s magic remained firmly pushing upon the Gates, trying to close them, but she was faltering, now seeing that all of her friends were in a position that if the Gates did close, it’d cut them all off from any chance of escape.

Rarity could see into Hell’s depths now. Darkness and flame filled the air, but far below, perhaps miles, she saw what appeared to be some vast labyrinth of white stone walls and pillars. She also saw the Kushanada, now a dozen strong, hovering around the inner Gates. Six of them had shoved their hands through the doors to try and attack her friends, while the rest waited behind, their emotionless skull faces looking at her with soulless yellow lights in their eye sockets.

It was now or never, Rarity realized. If words wouldn’t reach her friends, save apparently for Fluttershy, then Rarity would simply have to take action herself. She hated to do it, but there simply wasn’t another path to follow that wouldn’t condemn her friends. Nothing could be more unladylike, in Rarity’s opinion.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sharing her friends’ tears as she generated a set of blunt, red crystal rods that shot out of her whirlpool and targeted each of her unsuspecting friends. Unprepared for it, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack were shoved back and knocked a good twenty paces away from the Gates. Only Sunset managed to spot the move coming in time to block the rod that came for her with her shield.

“What are you doing!? Rarity, you can’t-”

“Sunset, there’s nothing more you can do! Let me go!” Rarity shouted.

“No! I refuse!” Sunset’s eyes brimmed with tears that steamed away to vapor through the heat pouring off her body. Inside she was a screaming torrent of denial, shame, fear, rage, and desperation. Nothing mattered more to her than the girls she’d formed these precious friendships with. It’d been heart-rending enough to realize Rarity had died in these endless battles, but Sunset had taken some comfort in the understanding that Rarity, dead or alive, would still be a part of the lives they all shared together.

If Rarity disappeared behind those remorseless Gates, Sunset didn’t know if she’d ever see her again. She couldn’t even imagine the torments that might await in that horrible place, and the thought of one so dear to her having to face all of that alone was entirely too much for Sunset’s soul to bear.

She thought she could hear Hikari and Hokori’s voices in her head, shouting warning or caution, but it was also as if her Zanpaktou’s spirits were sharing her agony and wrath. The black flames only grew, and the burn inside of Sunset’s hand felt as if it was spreading up through her arm and into her chest, a scorching pain that as terrible as it was, it also pushed her fear away.

Kushanada hands reached for her and Rarity, casting them in shadow.

Sunset let out a scream that was as hellish as the realm looming before her, a noise that didn’t belong to a human’s throat. The black flame consuming Hokori’s edge surged into a dark so deep it surpassed in, like an expanse of hot nothingness, but rimmed in white so intense it was as if the sun itself was made to bleed through the sword’s edge.

“Cut through! Cut through!Cut through!”

Sunset didn’t realize she was speaking, or that she was even in motion. A line of severing dark fire that extended so large that it sliced right through the roof of the training grounds created a wide arc from one slice alone. The Kushanada hands were decimated, fingers and palms sliced neatly. Then another arc of extensive flame that bored through hundreds of meters of training ground, shattering the wards of Discord’s shop, sliced again and dozens of Hell’s chains were neatly parted. More came, and were sliced again as Sunset’s roaring shouts accompanied lines of slicing void fire.

Something near her chest pulsated. A new heat joined the burning in her chest. Unseen by her, some of the severed Hell chains turned into dark orange hellfire and flowed towards her chest, seemingly entering it. Or rather, the Hogyoku that Discord had given her.

Yet despite all of this, despite destroying any Kushanada’s limb that dared reach out from the Gates, despite slicing through masses of chains that boiled forth... all it took was a few. Just a few remaining chains, still intact, that yanked Rarity the last scant inches and into the waiting grasp of one of the Kushanda beyond.

Seeing this, Sunset’s wings turned black, the fire exploding from them now pitch as night. She tried to move forward, intent to charge into Hell itself and cut down anything that was between her and her friend, determined to raze the entirety of Hell to ash if that’s what it took.

But then the Gates slammed closed as fast as any beam of light could move, cutting off Sunset’s last view of Rarity, looking back at her with a saddened smile.

Sunset sliced as hard as she ever had with Hokori, and the pure black blade of fire cut into the Gates, gouging the seemingly impenetrable stone. The Gates remained intact, despite her assault ripping several more melted gouges into it. Then, before Sunset’s eyes, and the eyes of everyone else gathered, the Gates of Hell flowed downward into a dark haze, and vanished.

And Rarity went with them.

----------

Heat and smoke choked her, and the pressure of the Kushanada’s hand squeezing her body was unbearable. But none of the physical pain came close to the deep cutting sadness of having to have seen the last looks on her friends faces as the Gates of Hell closed them off from Rarity’s view. Applejack’s usually strong and steady face, a source of such comfort to Rarity even when they clashed over tastes, had been a tormented mess of memory, no doubt remembering losing her parents. All of the endless confidence and cockiness of Rainbow Dash had been given over to such wide eyed shock and desperation that she had barely looked like herself. Pinkie Pie’s face had been a mask twisted by dual agonies, her jester’s mask running liquid as eyes both blue and yellow streamed tears. Fluttershy’s calm, zen mask was tainted by single streaks of tears as her hands clasped in a prayer worded silently for Rarity. Twilight’s eyes had been obscured by her glasses, fogged by tears of her own, her lips bit in frantic thought, magic writhing around her like frothing water. But painful as all those were to see, Sunset had been the worst to behold, her entire right side being consumed by the black fires raging uncontrolled from her Zanpaktou, her beautiful wings of flame turned dark as tar, face contorted into a demonic visage that Rarity hadn’t seen since before ever calling Sunset friend.

What have I done to you all? she wondered, but even as she thought it, she felt the remaining chains upon her tighten in ways that were in no way physical. She knew, in her soul, that there had been no other choice to make. The chains didn’t just hold her, they were bound to her spirit. No amount of running would have broken them from her. Even Sunset’s sword of dark flame could only sever the chain’s temporarily.

She’d been hellbound the moment Bowtie had performed Konso upon her. All her friends had done was delay an inevitable result for a few minutes.

Rarity had to take comfort in the fact that she’d spared them the same fate, but what now?

As if in answer, she felt her body being hurled like a pitched stone, sent cartwheeling downward with meteoric force.

“Gah! I know this is Hell and all, but it’s quite impolite to toss a lady!” she said, dipping into her spiritual power to try and summon forth some Bringer Light. To her rather pleased surprise, her Fullbring powers seemed to be working just fine and she was able to grind against the reishi particles in the air to slow her descent. As such, she was able to land with some dignity on her feet, now standing atop what appeared to be a tall pillar of white stone.

Taking stock of her surroundings, Rarity noticed that where she stood was the beginnings of some manner of incredibly large labyrinth of walls, bridges, pillars, and stone blocks. It stretched out to either side for as far as her eyes could see, but was also filled with thick stretches of smoke that smelled of brimstone. A thick heat cloyed at her skin, and she saw flames lick across expanses of the labyrinth, like rivers of fire that were a tad to biblically apt for her tastes.

“Not quite what I was expecting,” she said to herself, then looked up as she heard a set of bellowing groans, “Oh, so you lot aren’t done with me, are you?”

The Kushanada were falling from the sky where the Gates had been. She didn’t see the Gates now, but the hulking giants were hard to miss as they slammed down amid the labyrinth around her. Now that she could see their full bodies, unobscured, she had to admit that Hell’s very own wardens certainly cut imposing figures. Each one was readily in the fifty meter range, give or take. They were ogre-like humanoid brutes with dark gray skin and grotesquely bulging muscles. Their shoulders and lower waist were covered by what appeared to be dark and gold trimmed plates of armor in a samurai’s stylings, which clashed somewhat with their inhumanly elongated, skull shaped heads. The cleavers in their hands reflected the flames of Hell like torchlights, and with further bellows, several of them started to stomp through the labyrinth towards the pillar Rarity stood on, cleavers raised high.

The hunt is on, then, is it? Well, pardon me if I don’t play the role of rabbit so well.

Moment of truth, did her powers still work in full? With a glint of red light that shot up behind her, the “gates” of her own Fullbring sprung to life and yawned open. Her army of knights waited beyond, ready to march. Rarity looked back at the contingent of constructs, and recalled that in small numbers they were no match for the Kushanada’s strength, but now that she could bring them all out in full, well...

“Boys, be darlings and entertain these rather sizable gentlemen while I get the lay of the land, would you?”

Her verbal command was hardly needed, her knights sprung into action with the readiness of total commitment. Rarity let them surge past her in a crystal red tide as she herself turned and leaped off the pillar and floated down to a bridge further below. She started running along said bridge, while her knights engaged the first few Kushanada. Arrows and blades clashed against Kushanada’s cleavers and hide, and the air was briefly filled with the roaring retorts of cannons. While no one knight had the power to inflict more than superficial wounds on the Kushanada, the combined weight of arrows, spears, blades, and exploding cannon shots was enough to stagger the first set of Hell’s giant jailors.

Rarity got a few hundred meters down the first bridge, passing offshoots and passages between other pillars as the labyrinth went on. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but getting distance from the Kushanada and finding a spot to hide and catch her breath seemed like a good idea. She was all too aware of the clink of chains around her, and the faint weight of the spectral links of iron that wrapped her hands and legs. It seemed that now that she was in Hell, the chains didn’t seek to restrict her movement at all, but their weight, while not physically heavy, felt like it went deeper into her spirit and was already pulling upon her in ways that left her feeling a sensation of... helplessness, despite her spiritual powers working without restraint.

A stone building ahead of her to her left suddenly exploded, scattering rock and dust in a wide cloud. Rarity skidded to a halt as a Kushanada’s terrifying visage bore down on her, cleaver descending with air shattering power. Undaunted, Rarity leapt to meet it, Bringer Light flowing from her feet. Her whirlpool of blood stemmed forth from the rose on her left wrist, sending a stream to her right hand that formed into a large bladed saber that she used to parry the oncoming cleaver. Sparks showered, and her arm felt the incredible strain of deflecting the giant’s blow, but she used the momentum of the parry to change course and go flying down another passage between pillars.

The Kushanada gave chase, and Rarity sensed most of her knights were still busy fighting off this ones’ comrades near the spot she’d first arrived in. Even if many of her knights were getting pulverized, they’d always respawn within her own Fullbring’s gate, which moved to follow her as she got distance from it.

Tactically, the knights had served their purpose in giving her an opening to escape, and the gate would just give away her position, so Rarity dismissed it for the moment and focused on running. She ducked and dived through several changes in direction, rushing across different bridges and overhangs, trying to keep herself out of the Kushanada’s sight.

She thought she’d just about lost it, but then a shadow fell over her and she looked up to see that the titanic brute had leaped up over the labyrinth and now was coming down towards her like a cat pouncing on a mouse.

“Of for the love of-” Rarity braced herself and started to generate a crystal dome to try and absorb the impact, but just as she started to do so a voice range out, a man’s.

“Follow us!”

Bolts of deep orange fire lanced forth from a lower bridge, the heat of them intense even by the already hot standards of Hell’s atmosphere. The flames blasted into the Kushanada, inflicting blistering wounds, and pushing it back just enough so that when it impacted the ground, it was in front of Rarity rather than on top of her. She jumped back all the same, for the bridge she was on collapsed, but in mid-air she turned to see a cloaked figure, aiming hands at the Kushanada that were still wrapped in flames.

“Who are you?” she said, but then another voice, this one of a young girl, spoke.

“Names can wait, lady. You don’t want to get squashed on your first day in Hell, do you?”

This was followed by the sound of chains, and Rarity saw another, smaller cloaked figure leap off a nearby pillar and with a laughter that was, quite frankly, a tad chilling in tone, the small figure seemed to take hold of the invisible chains of Hell that wrapped around her cloaked body and cast them out like whips she could control. As if obeying the girl’s will, the chains flew out and wrapped around the head of the Kushanada just as it was starting to rise and regain its balance. The chains then constricted, and whether by their own power, or more frightfully, the girl’s, the Kushanada was yanked head first into one of the opposite pillars and sent sprawling.

The girl landed right in front of Rarity, the chains of Hell attached to her body unwrapping from the Kushanada and returning to her as if like loyal snakes. Rarity caught a glimpse of a childish face, wearing a grin of mischief as the girl held up a finger and wagged it at her, “Taking on a whole pack of Kushanada on your first day! Hahahah! You’re going to be an interesting one, I can tell. Come on! Before the whole pack catches up with us!”

“This way!” the cloaked man shouted, waving an arm towards an opening inside one of the larger stone blocks of the labyrinth. Hearing the roars of the other Kushanada filling the air around her, and realizing there were far more of them than just a dozen, Rarity realized it was by far in her best interest to follow these two, even if she didn’t exactly trust them yet. After all, much as the Zero Division’s plans for Hell were abhorrent, it didn’t change the fact that most people down here probably didn’t arrive by being good, charitable souls.

But given circumstances, Rarity didn’t mind accepting strange bedfellows.

She kept pace with the pair of cloaked individuals as they led her into the interior of one of the stone blocks, which in turn led to a rather swift and dizzying set of twists and turns through other corridors, across bridges leading lower and lower down until there was little light to even see by. After about five or so minutes of non-stop running, the pair finally slowed, coming to a halt atop a circular area nestled between a grouping of pillars so tightly packed that only a few silvers of hellish light entered from a river of fire that flowed like liquid only a dozen paces beyond the pillars. The heat was unbearable, and Rarity was already having trouble breathing.

Taking notice, the man of the pair of strangers looked at her and said with some sympathy, “You’ll get used to it, in time. The air here saps strength, dries out your lungs and mouth. You’ll feel like your dying of thirst for a while, because there’s no water here, but our bodies are left with the craving for it. But... the pain will pass in time.”

“Pfft, don’t give her the wrong idea,” the girl said, “The pain never goes away. You just get used to it. But hey, whatever doesn’t kill ya, right!? Heheh.”

Rarity took a deep breath to steady herself, and let her Fullbring fade, her clothing returning to normal and her hair going back to purple. The girl whistled, “Oh neat, you can do an instant dye job, on top of the whole toy soldier summoning.”

“You saw that?” Rarity asked, and this time the man responded.

“We were watching when the Gates appeared. We tend to hang out on the First Layer like this, keeping an eye out for new arrivals. Helps with recruitment.”

“Pardon?” Rarity asked, and the man reached up to the hood of his dark cloak and pulled it back. She hadn’t been giving her new companions a close look, but now she did. Their clothing consisted of little more than dark brown and black rags, with feet and hands bare, and the thick cloaks that covered much of their form and faces until the hoods were removed.

The man’s age was a bit hard to tell, because it was clear Hell was not kind to its denizens, and he looked older than he probably was. Flame orange skin was very reminiscent of Sunset’s, however, and the more she looked at him, the more the resemblance was there. Darker orange hair, ragged and split around his face, which was once probably youthful but now looked wane and skeleton. Only his eyes, bright blue, remained untarnished, burning feverishly with an intense fire darker than the one’s he’d summoned against the Kushanada.

“Let’s get introductions out of the way first. Only polite, really, and I’ve tried not to let this place rob me of that much, at least. My name is Sunburst. My companion here is-”

“I can introduce myself, silly, geeze,” the girl said, and removed her own hood.

Rarity gulped. The right side of the girl's face was a mess of burnt scar tissue, from her scalp all the way down to her neck, just a gray wasteland of melted flesh with all features, even her eye, scorched away. On the left side, however, was the smiling face of a girl probably not older than twelve or thirteen, with pale pink skin and a fiercely intelligent look in her single, soft pink eye. Light blue curled hair hung in a tangled mess down the left side of her head, braided at the ends but otherwise dirty and soot smudged. The girl’s smile was shockingly bright for such a dark place, but there was a dangerous, deadly edge to it that immediately concerned Rarity as the girl held out a stained, burned right hand.

“Heya, name’s Cozy Glow, and welcome to Hell.”

Author's Note:

When there is no more room left in Hell, Rarity shall walk the Earth once more! Or something like that. Actually I'd place twenty bucks on her running the place inside of a week. But hey, at least she's made some friends rather quickly. They seem on the up and up.

Anywhos, thank you all for reading (and being patient with the delay there), and as ever I highly appreciate any and all comments, questions, or critiques. 'Till next time!

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting the development with Sunset, or Medley's sword being quite so bonkers. But hey, Cozy Glow's here!

[PoisonClaw]

Yeesh, just trying to comprehend Medly's powers is making me go cross eyed...

Figured Rarity would run into him eventually, just didn't think it would be so soon.

[Spellflame]

So sunburst is still kicking
And cozy glow, neat

[Spellflame]

… Well that answers one question I had, I do wonder what twilight gave rarity, let’s see here
Pride got a powerup, will light get a matching one?
I wonder how rarity’s powers will change from this, same for sunset
… wonder who else is down there
Sunset will definitely be able to stop the gates next time though at least

[Mr Lore miser]

Looks like hell just got a new Queen

[sailing101]

Cosy Glow is in hell? Well that just makes sense.

[RanmaChaos]

A superb chapter, thanks.

[MSie95]

Wow... Lot's to unpack here... Though, I'm not worried about Rarity. She's just too competent for Hell to break her. She'll come back with a new Hell upgrade and an Immortal Army of the Damned ready to Ragnarök the Heaven. Togabitos are made of hardy stuff. It's going to be fun!!

I'm more worried about the rest of the team. This gonna hit them hard. Frankly, if not the trouble in Equestria, Hell might be a good place to hide and train. From what Medley said, Zero Division wouldn't check on them. Probably. And maybe Hell itself could be reason with? What Fluttershy found is interesting.

And, boy, Medley's powers are a mind screw on par with Tsukishima. And that's only her basic form. Though if she has some massive drawbacks (which neatly explain why she invented Hakuda), maybe it won't so bad. Still, she'll be a hard opponent to fight. Perhaps Pinkie could counter her? Or maybe they could use Memory Stone?

She wished she had her Zanpaktou fully restored, but that was taking even longer than fixing the damage to her Soul Sleep.

Ohh, so it wasn't stolen like the rest?

“Well we’ll worry about that when we can,” said Screwloose, heading over to the now thoroughly unconscious, at the very least, Bubbles. “In the meantime, if you didn’t outright kill this dumb twit, I and Screwball are going to tie her up and lock her in the bossman’s strongest cell.

Assuming they manage to keep her, she could be interrogated to gain some info about the Palace. Every bit of information will help.

“Heya, name’s Cozy Glow, and welcome to Hell.”

This... is the most fitting place for her. I mean it's so obvious when you think about it. Now let's see if she's still the little manipulative psychopath as in the show or if the time in Hell taught her something. Either way, it's going to be fun.

Also her look is sick!

11491568

Pride got a powerup, will light get a matching one?

She still needs to master her magic powers. Twilight makes a good use of hers.

I wonder how rarity’s powers will change from this, same for sunset

Hell powers are neat! Kind of shame Pinkie and Mena are not there too. They would fit in perfectly.

… wonder who else is down there

That Mantis Snake (Chapter 6) would be a neat comeback. Maybe Grand Fisher and Storm King. Probably not Garble or that Sea Urchin Octopus (Chapter 8) as they weren't killed by Reaper's weapons. And if things work similarly to Bleach's Hell, we could see a few previous Captains and Arrancars. Which will be neat because that means new forms! Notice how Hell Hollows differ from regular ones; they have chain markings and hoops instead of holes. Heck, Szayelaporro has a halo on his back.

[PrometheusX]

Well, that was a true rollercoaster ride. At this point though, I'm expecting Sunset to do her best Asura's Wrath impression (specifically, Berserker/Wrath Asura) on the next Zero Division member she can get her sword on the instant she processes what just happened.

[Snowkitsune]

11493097
she just smashed discords wards. I can not wait for the next chapter

[Forthwith]

Cozy Glow! Uh oh.

But anyway, I kinda thought Sunburst was super dead in hell. You know, have Starlight be the...less crazy(?) foil of Glory. This makes it seem like Starlight didn't even bother trying to rescue him before going all power crazy like the girls are obviously going to rescue Rarity. I mean he's right there at the doors. She could have at least said hi once in a while. Not that this won't make for good drama, but just saying.

[MSie95]

11587274
To be fair, getting to Hell is easy. Getting out or sending a message (without condeming yourself) is not.