Reflections

by RQK

30 - Reflections III

Chrysalis let loose another blast which barreled right into another foe. There were still a countless number of them coming by the droves from every conceivable direction. She could feel her horn starting to ache and her muscles groaned with every shot she took.

Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer, who blasted opponents right beside her, wiped beads of sweat off their brows.

The supercomputer lay behind them. It was thankfully still whole.

But something was going to give; the foes would eventually run out or they would run out themselves.

“I’m starting to lose my faith that they will find him,” Chrysalis thought aloud.

Her two companions only groaned in response and continued making more shots.

She heard a light, airy pop from behind her and she glanced back. There was a dark blue blob sitting on the metal sphere’s surface.

“Oh my,” she cooed.

The others turned and saw the blobby form as well and made similar sounds.

“Is that him!?” Starlight asked.

In a single instant, the possessions started screaming and crying out and then they all practically dove at them wholesale. They could tell right away that they were actually diving for the blob.

Sunset shot at a few of them while backing into the surface. “That’s got to be him! They found him!”

Finally! Chrysalis thought as she let off some shots of her own.

Sunset channeled a good deal of energy into her horn and made a barrier that surrounded the four of them, the boundary of which met the metal sphere’s surface. “Okay! I’ll protect us! You focus on getting him into that thing!”

Starlight landed right beside Miasmus, quickly examined him, and threw up a “Got it!”

Chrysalis landed on Miasmus’ other side. “We still have to make the adjustments to the spell, do we not?” she asked.

Starlight nodded. “The hole is that way. We should rotate the supercomputer that way.”

A few foes slammed into Sunset’s barrier, but with the amount of magic that she was putting into it, it held. The foes behind them ran into their backsides and prevented those in the front from pulling away for more hits.

Starlight and Chrysalis glanced up and then wrapped their magic around the sphere. They rolled it over, noting its shiny surfaces and internal leylines as it rotated underneath them. Eventually, it rolled over enough where they could see the part of its surface which contained large circular lights and a small, circular opening in the side.

“There it is,” Chrysalis said.

The both of them used their magic to stop the rotation. While Starlight lit her horn and shot some beams into the hole, Chrysalis kept a close eye on Miasmus and watched for any changes.

Sunset ran her eyes over every bit of her shield. She spotted a crack on the side and funneled more energy into her barrier spell, using it to make the crack go away. She ran her eyes over the many faces pressed against its surface. She watched the foes still coming in.

A few more humans floated in the distance, but they did nothing for a few moments but stare. And then their eyes fell on Miasmus, and they gasped and exchanged glances.

“Is that him!?” one of them called out.

“It’s him!” Sunset exclaimed.

Starlight glanced up and spotted them. “Keep these things off us! We’re almost there!”

The humans exchanged glances again, nodded, and then charged. They latched onto some of the foes and pried them off. The detached foes ignored their assailants and continued trying and failing to get through the barrier.

Chrysalis frowned. “Seems like they are very one-track…” she thought aloud.

Starlight shook her head and shot more magic into the metal sphere. The sphere responded with a wave of light that propagated through previously invisible leylines within its surface. She shot a few more spells into it, garnering similar results every time.

Miasmus’ blobby form stirred.

Eventually, Starlight nodded and turned to Chrysalis. “It’s done.”

Chrysalis nodded vacantly, opting to keep her focus on Miasmus. She watched as his body swished, and as it happened with increasing vigor, she narrowed her eyes. “Oh no.”

Sunset whirled around. “What!?”

And then Miasmus’ form lashed out, slapping them with several tendrils which sent them twirling. And all at once, the possessions collectively screamed.

Starlight couldn’t keep her focus and her barrier faded out. Some of the possessions that had been pressed against it started to float in their direction. She didn’t notice as she had to cover her ears to block out the sound.

Starlight similarly had to cover her ears and narrowed her gaze on Miasmus. Chrysalis merely winced under the noise while keeping her attention on him.

“You sub-level filth!” the possessions screamed. “You abysmally impudent insects! I will squash you like the bugs that you are!” The possessions surged forward, rapidly closing the gap.

Sunset let off a barrage of shots into the crowd, gaining several more pained screams in the process.

“I don’t think so!” Chrysalis growled as she threw a few shots of her own.

Starlight lit her horn and joined in as well. Between their combined attacks, they locked the possessions into a cycle of pain as they picked them off one by one.

Miasmus’ blobby form recoiled and then tried to lash out again. Chrysalis parried one of his tendrils and then shot a beam that hit square in the middle of his blobby form.

And there were several long moments where the possessions did nothing.

With the moment’s reprieve, Chrysalis whirled to face Starlight again. “Quickly!” she barked. “Put him in!”

Starlight nodded and wrapped her magic around his form. She then pressed him against the hole in the face of the machine, and with a squeeze, she managed to feed his blobby body into it. The process was slow, and there was even a moment where he lashed out again; Chrysalis parried that too.

Sunset threw up a few shots and then flinched when the remaining possessions flipped over to face them with burning scowls and red faces.

“No!” they thundered as a few charged again. “I will not be made into your toy! Unhoof me now!”

Chrysalis willed her body to move upward where she joined Sunset. The two of them took shots at every foe that they could lay their eyes on. The humans that had once been trying to pry off attackers were now doing various things to distract and otherwise throw the possessions off balance.

“You’ve made your bed, Miasmus. Now, lie in it!” Chrysalis thundered.

The last bits of Miasmus’ body disappeared into the supercomputer and it, in turn, gave a hum. The leylines that circled its surface flashed once.

Starlight glanced up at them. “It’s ready to go!” she called out.

A few of the remaining capable possessions gasped. “Curse you!” they screamed. “Curse you to Tartarus!”

Chrysalis threw her head back and guffawed at him (or, rather, his possessions). And with a sneer, she said, “And for the record, dear, I’m going to enjoy watching your last moments.”

Sunset whirled to face Starlight. “Do it! Do it now!”

Starlight nodded and looked down at the lit circles immediately around the hole. One tap was all it took. The supercomputer hummed to life as lights all over its surface began to flicker.

* * *

Crystal Faire stood her ground. Twilight Sparkle stood right beside her with her wings similarly stretched to their full length and with her horn similarly lit.

Cadance mirrored them in just about every way. Her crystal guards stood right by her.

Nopony moved. Nopony spoke. Eyes flicked between one pony and the next, all watching for signs of intent or other tells.

Her mind’s eye could see everything. Crystal had to tell herself not to look at the infinities of timelines. There were just too many. And that right in front of her needed her attention more.

And yet she was waiting on what was not in front of her. She was waiting for something that she couldn’t see.

Her lip twitched. She knew they could do it. She knew they would do it.

A shiver ran down her spine, and she swiftly realized that the shiver had happened on its own. It was only when her mind’s eye began pulling and distorting and twisting every which way that she realized what had happened. She could see timelines disappearing one by one although that meant nothing when there were uncountably many. She could feel currents, now familiar to her, running through her entire body, and she couldn’t help but shudder against their pull.

And Cadance couldn’t help but gasp. “Crystal!?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “The spell… The spell!”

Crystal nodded and kept her mental eyes on the process. Now a few dozen timelines disappeared from her mind’s eye at a time, and then a hundred, and then a thousand. The pace in which they disappeared rapidly picked up, and soon enough, Crystal could no longer guess how many were disappearing in the span of a second.

Her internal vision shifted around and continued to pull, effects which manifested in more bodily convulsions. Entire sets of timelines, infinitely big, disappeared in a flash. More and more and more left her vision.

The disappearances quit and then Crystal could feel the currents in her body change. They flowed in different directions now. She could feel her essence reaching across the expanse. She could feel her power wrapping itself around just about everything that it could find; she felt the power grabbing light posts and windowsills and floating chunks of rock and everything in between. She felt it reach near and then reach further and further out and she eventually felt it reaching to distances incomprehensible.

And then she felt a sharp sensation throughout her body that she couldn’t ignore. She could feel something at a distance tapping into her travel power; she could guess what that something was. Spasms wreaked havoc on her body and she could do nothing to prevent them. Her only recourse was to complicitly yelp and keel over.

And the others standing in the room gave an assortment of pointed cries and exclamations in response.

* * *

Starlight, Sunset, and Chrysalis whirled as the lights in the supercomputer slowed down and glowed a solid color before fading out altogether. And then they spotted bits and pieces of the metallic sphere seemingly dissolving. The process was sporadic and somewhat slow, but a good portion of the sphere was gone within the first few seconds alone.

Starlight turned her gaze back to the possessions who all now wriggled and writhed above them. Some even cried out in agony.

Her two companions watched from above her position.

The possessions all turned at once and, after kicking the humans away, they all charged at the same time, letting out feral screams all the while. Starlight steeled herself and let off a few shots. Sunset and Chrysalis did the same.

But there were too many coming at once this time. Surely this would be it.

And then those at the front of the pack suddenly and instantaneously vanished amidst loud (but not deafening) bangs. The wave of disappearances swept toward the back of the crowd and, as it propagated, the possessions’ faces grew increasingly pale and their wide-eyed expressions grew and grew. Finally, the last of the immediate set of possessions disappeared with a long and eternal “Nooooooooooo!”

The wave of disappearances didn’t stop there as the human allies suddenly disappeared amidst loud bangs; they all wore smiles the whole while. Several chunks of floating rock beyond them also vanished. Starlight, Sunset, and Chrysalis looked across the expanse and saw more and more debris steadily disappearing.

A few nearby towers instantaneously transformed. Their lower halves turned shiny and semi-crystallized while everything above those points turned into something that was almost crystallized but not quite there. There were probably tiny, crystallized slivers where the two parts met.

Starlight sucked in a breath and turned her attention to a tower not too far away; said tower was spewing out chunks just as it had the moment they had left it. The chunks that had just come off it disappeared as well. The remains of that tower instantaneously crystallized, simultaneously jettisoning large amounts of debris which just as quickly disappeared.

And she watched in silence as everything unfolded around them.

* * *

The throne room still enjoyed relative silence. The Crystal Heart, now just shy of entirely gone, still lay on its lonesome on the center of the table.

And then, amidst a loud bang, a small, metallic object fell from the immediate space above it. It clinked against the Crystal Heart and rolled a small distance across the Cutie Map’s surface before it came to a stop. The object in question was a small sphere that couldn’t have been larger than an apple, but the yellow light that it gave off bathed the entire room.

* * *

Twilight felt the entire castle shudder underneath her hooves and she had to fight to keep her balance. Her eyes still flicked between Crystal and Cadance, but with every pained gasp that the former made, Twilight felt her attention drawn to Crystal even more.

And Crystal, who still convulsed, now floated in the air. Cadance stood there completely mesmerized by the way Crystal moved. Nearly all the color had disappeared from her face at this point. Her guards made token attempts to approach, but sudden convulsions convinced them to step back again.

And then Crystal let out a mighty roar and her body started to glow. The next moment, her eyes flew open, and instead of her usual opals, they were a glowing-hot white. Little particles of energy came off her and bolts of magical energy arced across her body. Even her long and curly mane and tail glistened and radiated energy as unfathomable amounts of magic flowed through even those.

Now Crystal’s screams were deafening. Before anypony could truly react, however, the whole castle rumbled. Bits and pieces of the wall started dissolving. The remaining parts of the structure recoiled.

The guards all cried out and moved in random directions with some even trying for Crystal. They too suddenly disappeared amidst loud bangs. Supports snapped and rebounded, the bookshelf shattered into several pieces before disappearing too, while cracks spread across the windows and even the floor itself.

Cadance whirled around and watched as the castle disappeared around her. She gave a terrified scream and fell to her knees.

Twilight’s own heart pounded as she watched everything around them tear itself apart.

* * *

Equestria’s blue skies hosted the occasional clouds but it was otherwise undisturbed. A slight wind blew the grass which showed itself as shiny waves that traveled across the plain.

A mountain range lay on one side of the plain. A large pile of rubble lay at its base. Much of it was dirt but there were chunks of white stone and glass shards. A few pieces of golden roofing sat here and there. There was a hole further up the mountain face where the city had evidently once perched.

A series of loud bangs polluted the air and new pieces of debris appeared in droves. They were little chunks of rock and steel and dust but some more complex structures like toys and tools appeared, all of them faded to a degree. The earth rumbled and roared as several large chunks of land exploded, sending dirt in every direction. Some of the airborne pieces of debris likewise exploded as more material appeared and tried and failed to occupy the same space.

In short order, debris filled the entire sky with little room left over. The mountain range exploded into more pieces than could be counted. The ground continued to tear itself apart and then, in short order, red-hot lava spewed out of the ground with some jets reaching many kilometers into the air; said jets melted everything in its path.

And the bedlam continued with no foreseeable end.

* * *

Sunset kept an eye on one of the timelines that had just turned somewhat crystalline. She could see little debris fields between herself and it slowly evaporating. The area immediately around the three of them was fully vacated now, leaving them alone with the towers.

And then, within instants, the tower that she had been tracking rapidly changed; layers of the tower above those semi-crystallized sections started to fully crystallize and did so at a rapid pace. The crystallization shot up the height of the tower, and she couldn’t help but follow it with her eyes and even willed her body after it knowing she could never catch up with it.

She saw a timeline that wasn’t far away from it moving about. The moving timeline inched closer and closer, and right as the two timelines connected, the crystallization beat it there and the moving timeline bounced harmlessly off it. The tower swayed back at a much slower velocity than before. In fact, its sway was slowing down even more as well.

Sunset nodded. “It’s working! The spell is working!” she shouted.

Starlight nodded and took one last look around. “Then we’re done here! Let’s get out of here right now!”

Chrysalis didn’t even give a reply. Instead, she reached up and touched her neck twice in quick succession. A white light engulfed her and then she was gone.

Starlight stared at the spot where Chrysalis had once been and then looked up at Sunset and nodded. She too tapped her neck twice and, the next moment, she was gone as well.

Sunset cracked her neck and spent a few moments more watching as the expanse continued to vacate and crystallize. She looked in the direction in which she thought Crystal and Twilight had flown off to and narrowed her eyes. Stay safe…

She touched her own neck twice and her reality shrunk down to a single point.

* * *

Every nerve in Crystal’s body screamed in agony as the spell had its way with her. She couldn’t find the willpower to stop her own screams. She couldn’t even focus on what was going on around her.

That wasn’t true; she knew that Twilight and Cadance were there.

The Crystal Castle was a mere skeleton now. Those parts that remained were twisted in odd shapes and they still continued to disappear piece by piece. The floor was in shambles and then it disappeared altogether, leaving the three floating there.

The rest of the city was equally dissolved. Houses were half-gone and the streets existed only in parts. The crystallized tower underneath now lay exposed underneath the remaining bits of dirt. There were some lamp posts and bushes that went flying into the air only to disappear seconds later.

And Cadance, who saw all of it, screamed again.

The city continued dissolving until all the streets were gone. Bits of the palace still remained but that soon dissolved as well. The last little bit that remained was the Crystal Heart that floated below their position, which persisted for a few seconds longer before it invariably disappeared.

The stinging sensations started to die down and Crystal found some of her functions returning. She tilted her head to looked down at her mother.

Tears streamed down Cadance’s face as she surveyed the exposed timeline, their timeline, underneath. She looked like every bit of life had been knocked out of her. A few of her hairs split down the middle and she eventually sighed and hung her head.

Crystal twisted her head to look over at Twilight. Twilight, at the moment, gauged Cadance’s reaction (or lack thereof) and frowned. She then looked up at Crystal and solemnly nodded. Twilight floated over next to Crystal while wrapping her magic around Cadance and pulling her close as well.

Crystal used the few bits of willpower that she had to wrap her essence around the both of them in return.

She took one last look at the towers that stretched to infinity. She drank in the sight and etched them into her mind. This was a place she would never come back to. That much was a certainty.

Her mental vision, much like all her other senses, was a haze, and she fought to find the timeline that she wanted. Said timeline had many crystallized bits here and there and it was currently crystallizing even more.

It was a familiar timeline. And, for some, it was a home. It was a place to go back to. That much was a certainty.

Crystal touched the timeline with her mind’s eye and the world folded together. She was but a consciousness, but she could still feel strains and pulls of the power even in this state.

And then the world folded back out and Crystal, Twilight, and a very faded Cadance landed on top of the Map with a thud. Its cold, smooth surface greeted them before they could even prepare for it.

Crystal lay there. Her senses continued returning bit by bit and the stinging sensations faded as well. She found enough capacity to lift her head and look around the room.

Starlight sat slumped against the doorway. She breathed in and out and even massaged her horn for a bit. Chrysalis stood in another corner of the room, similarly panting for breath. Sunset, who lay on the floor, looked up to register their presence and sighed in relief.

With the way that Cadance lay on the Map, her mane obscured her expression. She made no attempts to move.

Crystal met Twilight’s eyes as Twilight looked up as well. Twilight wobbled about but she eventually smiled.

The ghostly image of the Crystal Heart in the center of the table chose that moment to disappear altogether. The only other effect on the table was the glowing yellow ball that sat beside it.

And the glow subsided and, with it, the sensations that had plagued Crystal also went away. She groaned and looked at existence with her mind’s eye. She idly scanned it for anything that was out of place. She looked for signs of movement, she looked for signs of holes. Her scan was cursory, but she found neither.

The remaining timelines were silent, still, and wholesome.

A smile graced her face and she let her head hit the Map again. It’s… done. We’ve saved existence.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

... Is that a Dragon Ball?

[EchoWing]

Yay, they won! Of course, something tells me that there's still some cleanup left to be done.

[Sound Wave]

Yay! They did it! What happens next though??

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Thank Faust....

[Razzy]

Welp, that timeline where all that debris ended up at is fudged.

But at least they made it.

[Blaster M]

The multiverse is saved... for now

[RoboRed]

What a crazy turn of events.

[Csquared08]

And it's epilogue time

[NeoNymph]

And there's the climax. The multiverse is saved.