Songs of the Spheres

by GMBlackjack

103 - Conquest, Part 1

O’Neill had called another special meeting in the middle of Celestia City, including Thor, Squeaky, Saxton Hale, Starbeat, Ava, and the robotic Research Overhead. “We’re approaching the end, people. Within the hour the subfleets are expected to breach Skarn’s defenses and be within weapons range of the Congeries’ center. It took them seven local ‘days’ to get this far. The effectiveness of the Redshirt strategy has exceeded all expectations.”

Starbeat couldn’t help but smirk.

O’Neill grunted. “Yes, we get it, you were right. Outside of a large-scale military engagement such methods are going to be banned, you understand.”

“That’s Oversight’s and Justice’s purview,” Ava pointed out.

“And the chances of them not regulating this sort of thing?”

“Minimal. Just reminding you of your place.”

O’Neill looked at the Labor Overhead. On some days he thought she was the perfect person for the job, and on others she was just so nagging about ‘proper use of authority’ and the like.

She would definitely have Eve and Giorno’s heads if she knew. Which she wouldn’t. Ever.

Which made him accessory to conspiracy. What fun. Four of the thirteen Overheads in on a conspiracy.

If they were somehow found out now it would be even more disastrous than if it had just been Evening and Giorno. Such pleasant thoughts today, I’m on a roll.

Squeaky cleared her throat, sensing a lull in the report. “We have received occasional visual confirmation of the Congeries’ center. Every image we manage to snap is not useful for more than a few minutes because it’s in a state of rapid flux. What we do know is that the center of the Congeries occupies a single universe about the size of a standard Earth Sun, relatively speaking. Unlike all the other universes in the Congeries, this one is perfectly spherical, instead of the random patchwork we’re used to. The outer edge of this center is always completely solid, although changing material and pattern.”

“I thought he gave up using walls?” Saxton Hale asked.

“It was ineffective against a spread out fleet,” Thor said. “However, once we reach the center, the surface area is small enough that Skarn’s Shaping Mechanism can alter the entire area at one time. This means a wall that he can continually repair on all sides will be very effective at keeping us out, assuming he can jam teleportation past it.”

“We’ve also detected that all his remaining ships are clustering around the center,” O’Neill said. “There’s not that many – few hundred – but it’ll be enough to do some damage. Not to mention there are probably hundreds of thousands of those vanilla bean soldiers hiding out in various places, ready to board and wreak more havoc on our fleet.”

“Remaining subfleets?” Ava asked.

“Twenty-six,” the Research Overhead reported. “Projected to be twenty-five or twenty-four at time of arrival. Roughly 60% of our original fleet size.”

“Those are bad numbers,” O’Neill pointed out.

“In a standard Earth War,” the Research Overhead countered.

“This is a multiversal war,” Thor commented. “Weapons are significantly more lethal and when a ship is destroyed, the entire crew usually goes with it. I suspect the defense numbers are much better for our side.”

The Research Overhead nodded. “Medical attention and revive spells are much more readily available for our combatants here – ones that aren’t using the Conjoiners, anyway. 95% strength, the exact opposite predicted for the Congeries forces.”

“Guess we’re moving on to the defense report,” O’Neill said. “Conclusion of the offense – horrible losses, but we’ve got enough left to smash their doors in from all sides. As already mentioned the defense is going much smoother. With the exception of the first day where we scrambled to defend against unexpected ground troop movements, we have taken control of the situation. As the offense has pushed deeper and deeper into the Congeries, fewer and fewer ships arrive in our space.

“Recovery efforts for Earth Vitis and Equis Cosmic are underway in full force, though numerous cities have been lost in both. Earth Vitis Canterlot is a complete loss, structurally. Luckily the city was mostly evacuated before the Congeries fully entered. Currently, these two worlds have almost no enemy presence, same for Equis Vitis. E-Sphere universes never had any significant presence to begin with.”

“Which leaves three fronts,” Thor said. “The Elemental Nations, Lai, and the Hub. The Hub is under no major threat but it is known vast numbers of them are hiding in the jungles. The Elemental Nations have been fighting numerous waves of the soldiers in several locations for most of the war, so there is no surprise there. We were completely surprised by Lai.”

Squeaky nodded. “They found an ancient Rune that allowed them to duplicate themselves. The Rune was destroyed at the behest of Queen Toph, but the aftermath is proving to be problematic. Lai has the least dimensional stabilizers out of all the founding worlds, and they are being systematically removed by the Congeries. They are not expected to take out any of them in Lai castle, but the civilian damage they are causing cannot be understated. Even with medical staff and harmonic energy all around, it’s a bloodbath out there.”

“Which is why we need to take Skarn out,” O’Neill said. “End this war.”

“And what if the soldiers keep fighting?” Ava said, raising an eyebrow.

“Then we better hope the fleet finds a way to get past their memory screwing so we can dump the protomolecule on them, because it’ll be a long extermination process otherwise.”

~~~

Allure looked at her chosen warriors.

Jade, Alushy, and Nae.

“I want you to find Minna and protect her,” Allure said.

Jade raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t y-”

“I can’t sleep!” Allure blurted. “I have to know if she’s okay! D-don’t try to stop her from completing her mission, but help her if you can.” She looked down. “I’m not a soldier. Even though I learned to fight well in the Loops, I don’t think I could handle a full-scale war. I’d just get in the way.”

“You got that right,” Alushy said. “Though I hear Flutterfree got some snazzy new wing knives, I’m sure there’s some bitchin’ super armor we can get you or somethin’.”

“I’d rather not integrate my skeleton with deadly metal, thank you,” Allure said. “But I do have friends I trust. Friends that can go and keep her safe.”

Jade nodded. “You can count on us.”

“I know. Nae here has already been fighting – she’ll get you into the thirty-eighth subfleet and guide you in from there.”

Nae smiled. “It’s brutal out there, but we’ll find her. Just have to spend a little time in every fleet to do it. Personnel are a bit hard to keep track of, especially if there’s a soldier who’s lying about their name, age, or otherwise.”

“If she’s fighting, whatever commander she’s under will know it,” Allure said. “Because… you know.”

“We know,” Nae said. “By the way, Alushy, I thought you were already fighting?”

“I got bored,” Alushy said, stretching her wings. “But this is more than enough reason for me to go back in. Let’s fuck ‘em up.”

Jade barked.

Alushy chuckled. “There it is.”

Jade sighed. “Shouldn’t we get going?”

“One last thing,” Allure said. “You’re not supposed to be in speeders or high-danger situations unless you find her there. …Please, come back safe.”

“Do I look like I plan to die today?” Alushy said, laughing. “No, of course not. Don’t you worry your pretty head about us.”

Nae opened a portal. “The best place to dial the fleet is from the Hub. Come on.”

The three of them left, the portal closing behind them.

Allure was alone once again.

I’m going to be in a constant loop of second-guessing my decisions today.

She cut her hologram transmission, returning to Celestia City. She’d wanted to send Thrackerzod as well, but there was currently a travel ban to keep the Congeries from finding Celestia City.

…She still wanted to be near the action, or at least the place the action would be. She asked the City to track down O’Neill for her. She had the required security clearance to do so. It pointed her right to his bunker briefing room.

She stepped outside onto one of the outer layers of Celestia City and looked at the sky – or what parts of the ‘sky’ she was allowed to see. She could only make out mysterious swirling patterns of red, a simplified view of the true eldritch nature of the location.

Hastur had been kind enough to lend a smaller Eldritch Embodiment universe that nobody cared about to them. The Congeries would never expect them to be within the space of another nation while they were at war – which was exactly why they were here.

It was only a short walk to a teleporter pad and then Allure arrived at the military bunkers. They were a series of simple, metallic rooms devoid of decoration. She received a few odd glances from the military masterminds, but she didn’t mind, and they didn’t look long – they were far too busy. She found O’Neill enjoying a cup of what was probably coffee, leaning against a wall.

“Hey,” Allure said.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” O’Neill told her, standing up tall.

“Sure.” Allure sighed. “Don’t mind me, I’m just here because I can be and I’m really, really nervous.”

“Minna still?”

Allure nodded. “Yeah.”

“This might make you feel worse. We talk a lot about death and sacrificing soldiers here.”

“Maybe. I’ll leave if I think it’s too much.” She looked at the holographic model of the offense – the subfleets converging on a single point. It looked beautiful to her, the golden color of Merodi Universalis charging the red cluster of dots that represented the Congeries.

“You think we’re going to win?”

“It’s not actually a question of if we’ll win,” O’Neill said. “We’re almost certain of it. The question is how much are we going to have to sacrifice to pull it off.”

“Ah…”

“There’s also the third option,” O’Neill said. “Something unexpected happens.”

“But if you’re expecting it doesn’t that make it expected?”

“Talk to Starbeat, and then proceed to be more confused.”

Allure let out a sigh. “Oh joy…”

~~~

Corona was not on the Andromeda at the moment – she was strolling down the speeder bays of the Austraeoh, so named because it’s captain was a Rainbow Dash who said that was how it needed to be. Apparently it meant something in her home universe.

Not that Corona had any idea what it meant. That Rainbow Dash captain had a lot of stories to tell, but they jumped all over the place so much that Corona had a hard time keeping track of it all, especially since so few of them ever got finished due to sudden combat.

Corona pushed those thoughts out of her mind – she had a particular speeder team she wanted to talk to. Her current prized team who had pulled through so many times to pull the fleet forward.

She tapped on the window of speeder forty-two. “Hey.”

A purple alicorn with a white mane (styled in the standard Twilight Sparkle fashion) and green eyes poked her head out of the speeder. “Yes?” she asked, light glinting off her white hearing devices.

Corona knew it was Eve. But as far as Eve was concerned Corona thought she was ‘Twinkie’, so named because of her white mane. Which totally wasn’t fake. “Twinkie, I want to see your whole team.”

Eve nodded, gesturing for everyone to come out. Two of the crewmembers were redshirts that Corona didn’t have time to care about, unfortunately. The fourth member, however… white skin, white hair, purple eyes.

Definitely Minna. She called herself Nadia and claimed to be a turncoat. Corona didn’t have any complaints about the falsehood, since Minna was the most effective speeder pilot she had, considering her sudden mastery of her kind’s unusual sight.

Corona also knew that while both Eve and Minna thought their ‘disguises’ were perfect, they each knew who the other was. It was frankly rather comical.

“Right, so, you know you’re the speeder team with the biggest success in the entire third subfleet, right?” Corona asked.

Eve nodded. “Right.”

“Good news, you’re all getting medals. Bigger ones this time.”

Eve rubbed the back of her head. “Yeah…”

“I’m also going to be transferring you off speeders.”

Minna blinked. “Wait, what?”

“We’re reaching the center,” Corona said. “Won’t need them much longer. I think you’ll do great as part of my personal strike team.”

Eve blinked. “Shouldn’t you stay on the Andromeda commanding the subfleet?”

“I am one of the strongest spellcasters in the entire fleet,” Corona pointed out. “I won’t be needed when Yellow Diamond retakes control in the final moments. So I’m forming a team for direct attacking. You four are on it.”

Minna’s concerned look turned to a smile. “Good. Thanks, Corona.”

“Don’t mention it, Nadia,” Corona said with a smile. “You can come with me to the Andromeda for now. We’ll be able to discuss the actual plan. I really think you should be part of it.”

Eve shot Corona a glance. …Do you know? she asked telepathically.

Yes. Eve, that’s a horrible disguise.

She grimaced. Ah. Well, thanks then. For covering.

Anytime.

Minna glanced between Corona and Eve. “Hidden conversation… Hrm…”

Corona waited for Minna’s inkling to tap into what was going on.

Unfortunately, it looked as if Minna was not meant to know about the conversation, because she just shrugged and put on a smile.

Corona teleported them to the Andromeda’s bridge to begin the explanation of what was to come.

~~~

“You know what I hate?” Pinkie said as she trudged through the halls of another speeder-carrying ship in yet another subfleet. Her mane was still as straight as it could be, but she was otherwise fine.

“Skarn?” Vriska suggested.

“War?” Nova muttered, trying in vain to magically grow part of her mane back.

“Needless violence?” Flutterfree added. She looked the worst out of all of them, by far – her wingtips were covered in blood that had dried long ago, her Rage robes and mane were in tatters, and she looked tired.

“Yare yare daze?” Jotaro suggested.

“Spotty information,” Pinkie said. “I was just partially aware of Eve getting taken out of a speeder and onto a strike force mission. But I can’t tell you in which fleet it’s in because, gasp, that would ruin the boring drudgery we’re doing now!” She pulled a knife out of her mane and threw it into a nearby wall. “I’m getting real fed up with it.”

“We’ve searched over half the subfleets,” Flutterfree reminded her. “It won’t be that much longer.”

“I think we all know we’re going to end up in the big battle in the center,” Pinkie muttered. “Because of course we do. The story was never going to get there without us.” She smacked herself in the head. “What a dummy I’ve been!”

“You really need to get back to being yourself,” Nova said. “Seriously, I’m used to fighting the Pinkies that have gone psycho. You’re making me want to shoot you out of reflex.”

Pinkie grunted. “I’ll be fine. Ish. Eventually. Whatever, you all voted me out of the leader position anyway, who cares about my mental state!?”

“I do,” Flutterfree said, smiling warmly. “We all do.”

Pinkie sighed. “Sorry, sorry. Not in the best headspace right now, and I’m being forced to fight in a war. You don’t know what that’s like.” She caught Flutterfree’s glance. “…Nevermind, talked without thinking again.”

“It’s okay.”

“And this is why you’re the leader right now,” Vriska said. “You’re still cool.”

“I predict I’ll have a psychotic breakdown sooner or later,” Flutterfree said, staring at the blood on her wings. “Jotaro, remember, you’re the backup.”

Jotaro nodded.

Nova rubbed the back of her head. “I just realized. All of us are kinda stressed out to the point of shouting at each other, and yet we’re still a functioning unit.”

“We’ve been working together for decades,” Flutterfree explained. “So even if I’m acting like a bitch everyone will just roll with it and we’ll be fine.”

Nova stared at Flutterfree. “…I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘bitch’ before.”

“Evidence of my impending psychotic breakdown,” Flutterfree said with a sad laugh.

“There is something seriously wrong with all of us,” Vriska said.

“This war needs to end,” Nova said. “Assuming Pinkie’s right, we might be the ones to do it.”

“At least that’ll be cathartic,” Pinkie muttered. “I’ll crush them like bubble wrap.”

“Fun,” Jotaro commented.

“Well look what the kraken dragged in!” Meenah marched up to them, Feferi at her heels. “Never expected to see you fronds in the twenty-seventh subfleet.”

“We’re looking for Eve,” Nova said. “Have any alicorn mares with suspicious deafness or an aversion to loud sounds?”

“Not that I know of,” Meenah said.

Feferi pulled out her phone and did some searches. “Nothing comes up. But the persoshell files aren’t always up to date. Or organized. Or accurate. It’s just become more of a seaweed tangle as time’s gone on. That’s probably why you’re down here, isn’t it?”

“Direct search!” Pinkie declared. “Results: big fat zero.”

Meenah smirked. “I’m shore you’ll find her eventually.” Her smile faded a second later. “Hey… I’m sorry about Rainbreath.”

Flutterfree smirked. “…Rainbreath?”

“Yep. That’s what I called her. A few others had started usin’ it as shell.”

“Probably would have ended up being her name,” Pinkie said with a sigh. “...’Dasha’ was never really her, you know?”

“We know it wasn’t your fault,” Nova assured Meenah.

“Probably was, indirectly,” Meenah said. “So… Yeah. Anyway, if I can do anyfin’ for ya just let me know a-”

Red lights started flashing on the ships wall. An alarm message met their ears. “WE’VE BEEN BOARDED!”

“And that’s my cue to get back to my ship,” Meenah said. “Want a teleport out of here while they sort this out?”

Flutterfree shook her head. “No, we’ll help deal with it. Right team?”

Vriska produced her dice, grinning. “Hell yeah.”

Meenah gave Vriska a thumbs-up before returning to the safety of her command ship. Everyone knew she would have loved to stay and fight, but such were the responsibilities of a subfleet commander.

Nova lit her horn and checked her screen. “They’re in the engine room. Teleporting now…”

They teleported successfully to the engine room – a cylinder-shaped enclosure with a large blue column of energy in the center. There was a hole in a nearby wall that vented to the bizarre space of the Congeries, but luckily explosive decompression wasn’t a thing under the current physics; it was just a windy loss of air.

About a dozen of the armored soldiers were in the room, shooting at the heavily-shielded column of energy with their invisible attacks.

“And you get to die of a heart attack,” Vriska said, draining one’s luck to zero in an instant. He died of spontaneous combustion. This made Vriska’s left eye twitch.

“STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!”

It was generally very difficult for the soldiers to dodge time stop, even more so when Jotaro threw Hermit Purple and the Passion into the mix, reading the intents of their souls and tying them together. That said, they were still in power armor, and thus didn’t die instantly from Star Platinum’s punches.

The enemy soldiers gambled and went for the energy column whole hog. They destroyed it without much more effort, breaking the ship’s engines. The resulting power surge caused an explosion elsewhere on the ship, destabilising its trajectory. It headed straight down for the protomolecule planet’s surface.

“HOLD ON!” Nova shouted, tapping into the deepest reserves of her magic to telekinetically grab the ship and pull up. There was no way she was preventing the crash – but maybe it wouldn’t be at terminal velocity.

Flutterfree moved, slipping between the standing soldiers with her bladed wings. Many of them were able to simply step out of the way, but the three that couldn’t were cut in half. She whirled around and fired the bow of light a couple times for good measure, forcing another one to dodge right into Pinkie’s chainsaw.

“You are a lot more interesting to fight with when you’re crazy,” Vriska pointed out.

“Less quipping, more fighting,” Pinkie said, producing a spike-studded golf club and removing a soldier’s head with it.

Even with their strength and memory twisting, Skarn’s forces never stood a chance against Merodi Universalis’ primary team.

Nova managed to safely crash the ship on the surface of the protomolecule planet with the hole in the wall facing upward, so as to not crush all of them. The blue biological construct began to worm its way into the ship and do its work – repairing damage and trapping any living enemy soldiers in cocoons. The next best thing to actual infection.

The Investigator appeared to Pinkie. “Sometimes the cases close themselves.”

“Yep, you’re right.” Pinkie said. “I confess, I totally murdered these people. …Though for all we know the fight was actually long and brutal but our memories have been altered. Heh.”

Everyone stared at her.

“Investigator,” Pinkie explained.

“Thought you were the nice ones,” the Investigator said, examining a body Flutterfree had cut in two.

“We’re in a bad mood,” Pinkie muttered. “Speaking of, we need to check this ship and move to the next subfleet. Sorry, no time for you.”

Vriska turned to Jotaro. “Should we tell her to be less rude?”

Jotaro shrugged. “For all we know the Investigator is insulting her family.”

“He’s not!” Pinkie called. “But we do need to move it! Chop chop! Adventure awaits and all that crap!”

~~~

“All we know for sure about it is that it’s spherical,” Corona said, bringing up a hologram that displayed the Congeries’ center, complete with all the red dots that represented the enemy ships they knew about. The reddish light covered the Andromeda’s bridge “We have reason to believe it’s just a big, shifting wall that wants to keep us from whatever’s inside.”

“So what’s the plan, then?” Eve asked.

“The first plan is to shoot everything we’ve got at it,” Lady Rarity said. “Yellow Diamond thinks the simple solution will be the best. Smash it until it opens and reveals the inside for us.”

“Skarn’s going to be too clever for that,” Minna said. “Just keep shaping the wall back into existence. Wailing on it isn’t going to do anything.”

“I’m personally hoping ramming a protomolecule planet into it will do it,” Corona said. “We’ve got the really big one still. If nothing else we can probably infect the center with that maneuver.”

“We’ll need to use a planet that doesn’t have anyone grounded on it,” Eve said.

“Clearing efforts are underway now,” Corona said. “Regardless, that’s plan A. Plan B is what we’re going to be doing. Take small teams down, go to the surface of the shape, and try to avoid Skarn’s senses. If he’s occupied with giant ships he may not be able to take time out of his day to smash us directly. Which means, yes, the strike team doesn’t get a ship. Armor, but nothing else.”

Minna nodded. “Okay.”

“So we just sneak in?” Eve asked.

Corona smirked. “Sneak until we’re on the surface. Then a drill a hole right through this crust of his using all the magic we have at our disposal. Then… We don’t exactly know what’s inside, so we’ll work that part out when we get to it.”

“Sounds fun,” Eve commented.

“I think it’s a good plan,” Minna said. “Who’s coming?”

“Me, Rarity, you two, the rest of your team, and some others.” All Redshirts. “Got it?”

“Seems simple enough,” Eve said.

“Good. It won’t seem simple while we’re out there.”

“Incoming message!” the communications officer declared. “Yellow Diamond is ordering us to fuse with subfleet nineteen.”

“Nineteen?”

“The one that’s currently at the front and suffering heavy losses.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Corona said, hand to her chin. “Right, dial nineteen’s coordinates, let’s show these morons we mean business.” She sat down in her chair. “Might want to get your suits on – there may not be a lull between combat anymore.”

Eve didn’t need a suit, so she just took her position next to Corona. Lady Rarity fastened a few clamps around her armor’s neck, making it airtight. Minna was the only one who had to walk to the back halls behind the bridge to access armor storage.

She nervously reached out, placing her hand on the storage door. Behind it was the only physical thing that separated her from those monsters out there. Cold, impassioned metal that existed to improve her ability to kill. It may have been armor, but she wasn’t paying very much thought to the defensive aspect of the clothing. At the moment, it was all war and danger to her.

She popped the door open, walking into a short hall with standard equine and humanoid suits hung on the walls. She somehow just knew which one was her size, walking right up to it and staring up at its helmet.

It didn’t look anything like the purplish armor of what they were fighting. The metal was a simple gray. The lights in it were glowing an ominous red, but that was only because it was hooked up to Corona’s personal magic in the Andromeda. The plates fit together smoothly, and it was well padded on the inside. She even noticed interior pockets for small, sentimental items.

This was definitely not the things her people were wearing. There was no physics-altering field here, just standard high-end magitech.

She suddenly felt a lot better. She stepped right into it, feeling the padding close around her limbs. She didn’t feel claustrophobic, though that may have had more to do with her limited capacity to feel fear than the minor epiphany she had just gone through.

The screen on her visor lit up – and gave her an error message she saw three seconds before it popped up. PLEASE SEE MECHANIC TO ADJUST ‘FLUX CAPACITOR’ BEFORE USE. There was fine print under the message. The ‘Flux Capacitor’ is nameless component 849-1234-2842-13590715.

Minna sighed, prying herself out of the suit. She looked for another one of the same size in the locker but found none. With a grunt she returned to the bridge. “Only one of my size is broken. I’m going down to the lower decks to get one.”

“Computer, give Nadia full armory clearance if she doesn’t have it already,” Corona said absent-mindedly, closely watching the report of the fight. The third fleet had taken over the nineteenth and they were pushing forward much faster than expected – the near-zone of the Congeries center might be nothing but a single universe jump away.

Minna moved to leave the bridge – but then the Andromeda shook.

“Under fire!”

Corona examined her map. “Directly? How? Where? I don’t see a ship here!”

“Currently unknown!”

“Probably some stupid one-time trick,” Corona muttered. “Scramble some Heart and Light players here, I need to know where it’s coming from.”

Eve conspicuously closed her left eye tight and lit her horn – even though she had no need to light her horn to use her Light powers. “…We can’t see them because our memories are being molded.”

Minna’s eyes widened. “You can tell?”

Eve opened her eye and let her magic aura drop. “It’s a complicated spell, and I only think it works because they don’t know that I know. I also don’t think it’s the soldiers.”

“Yeah, they couldn’t hide an entire ship,” Minna said. “Too du-” she blinked, staring at the display. “I can’t see anything either… I should. I’m not getting anything though.” She narrowed her eyes. “Must be something there… Just need to push…”

It appeared for her – a single yellow ship shooting at them at point-blank range, moving randomly around them to keep the pattern from being predictable.

Minna pointed her finger, following the hologram only she could see. “Shoot this.”

“Huh? Shoot?” Corona said. “Why?”

Eve covered her eye again. “Augh! Our memories are being altered!”

“Just shoot!” Minna said. “Trust me!”

Corona looked at her – as if she couldn’t see Minna’s arm and had just forgotten what Minna had said.

Minna grunted. “Fine, I’ll do it myself… Somehow. Hey, Corona, I’m curious, which console has weapons control?”

Corona’s mind registered this question. “Ah, that would be over there, next to- hey wait!”

Minna didn’t. She pressed a few buttons – the weapons were already firing on other ships, so there was no need to unlock them – and changed the weapon’s direction toward the invisible one. It hit dead-on, breaking the spell that was on everyone.

“What did you just hit?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know, but it was a lot smarter than just a general soldier,” Minna said. “It was controlling, calculating, adapting.”

Corona rubbed her head. “I really need to figure out a defense against them…”

“I can be your eyes,” Minna said. “Now, Twinkie, do that thing you do to tell us stuff about stuff.”

“H-how do y-”

“You just did it twice in the last two minutes.”

Eve blinked. She didn’t even bother hiding her eye this time as she activated it, looking into the Light. “I sen-”

“WE’VE GOT THE LAST COORDINATES!” the communications officer shouted. “A speeder just got through and then kept flying.”

“Get the entire fleet moving!” Corona said. “Prepare for battle!” Corona stood up and flexed her wings. She lit her horn, preparing to take them to the lower decks.

“Oh no,” both Eve and Minna said at the same time.

The bearish form of Brell punched through a door to the bridge, allowing all of them to see her – but only giving Corona the honor of being looked at. “You must have found a way to fight against my Convolution. I am impressed, but not surprised, that it would be you C-”

Corona teleported the entire bridge crew to the escape pods before she could finish. “Everyone out. I’m going back up there and teaching her a lesson. Raging Sights, instinctual protocol, we need t-”

Just as the Andromeda passed through the final portal, its engines exploded, sending dark, red magic in all directions.

~~~

The destruction of the Andromeda was barely a blip on Yellow Diamond’s radar as she reclaimed control of the entire fleet. All around the third subfleet, the remaining twenty-three other subfleets appeared, all but one carrying with them a protomolecule planet. The Merodi Universalis fleet was complete once again.

The center of the Congeries currently had a hybrid appearance – half watermelon, half sea urchin, the spines moving to point at the fleet like turrets. The few hundred remaining Skarn ships flanked the central globe, facing the incoming fleet.

For a moment, all the fighting stopped. The ships that had been attacking the third fleet jumped back to rejoin their brethren. The forces of Skarn and Merodi Universalis stared at each other across an uncharacteristically empty divide, devoid of any artistic works.

Two swarms of ships. One vastly outnumbered the other, while the other had a shaping mechanism at their backs.

Yellow Diamond allowed herself to smirk. “You all know the plan,” she addressed the fleet. “Hit it with everything you’ve got.”

They did.

Splitter nukes fired from the Tau’ri ships, carrying more than enough supercharged nuclear material to blow a planet to shreds. Beams of pure red energy shot forth, carrying with them the promise of instant death to whatever they touched. Holy arcs shot across the sky, blessing the space with their divine, but vengeful presence. Superweapons that had been kept under lock and key the entire rest of the war were unleashed, including a few minor eldritch horrors and Discords, not to mention the Imperium’s Blackstone Fortress planet-core busters.

The ships in orbit never stood a chance. Almost all of them were vaporized within minutes.

But the central orb itself was not so defenseless. Instantly it shifted from a watermelon-urchin to a ball of pure gold, upon which sat hundreds of pyramids. Each pyramid opened up, revealing strands of white energy.

Harmonious energy.

Harmonious energy that surrounded the entire world like a web, intercepting all incoming attacks with ease, destroying them without letting them unleash their terribly destructive yield. All the violence was simply cancelled.

Yellow Diamond frowned. “He’s letting us have a taste of our own medicine. Wonder how many Trees of Harmony he had to pulverize to pull this off?”

There were a chorus of stressed calls to her – did they have a way to break through harmonious energy of that caliber?

“Yes,” Yellow Diamond said. “Brute force would break through. But if we charge in brazenly, that will just leave us open to Skarn’s shaping. We move in cautiously while I consult with command. Pattern delta-seven, understood?”

There were a series of confirmation messages. The fleet moved forward, slowly, watching carefully for an attack from Skarn.

It didn’t take long. He generated a few dozen cones of vibrant energy, sending them all at the fleet. The cones proved to be immune to all their standard methods of attacking, shrugging them off like they were nothing. Skarn had been doing his homework over the past week of war, watching them, studying them – and learning. With his Shaping Mechanism, he could easily throw new things at them on a whim.

It was taking heavy, direct altering of reality on their part to stop his attacks – and that simply took too long and cost too much energy to deal with the sheer amount of stuff he was throwing at them. They had to move quickly.

Yellow Diamond still hadn’t received anything from O’Neill. “Tell the fleet the secondary teams can move through this as soon as they think the risk is acceptable. Make it clear I’m not ordering them to go yet. We don’t want to fire everything we’ve got at once…”

A few sets of various Merodi in armored suits flew toward the center. Many of them were caught in the crossfire – but Yellow Diamond saw many others were making it past the location in space Skarn was currently creating the cones. He did not create any more to stop them.

Hopefully one of them knew how to get past the harmony barrier.

Several thousand miles away, closer to the center of the Congeries…

“I have no idea how we’re going to bust through this thing,” Alushy admitted. “None at all.”

Nae rolled her eyes. “Brute force it. You’re a creature of darkness, you should be able t-”

Jade pointed out her thumb and pointer fingers on each hand, using them to create a rectangular box in front of her. She pressed her hands closer together, shrinking the three of them to microscopic size while keeping their velocity. “This might do it!”

Alushy laughed. “Wouldn’t it be something if Minna got there before we did?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Nae admitted. “She is a strong woman, like her mother.”

“You met her mother after she took a level in badass,” Alushy pointed out.

Nae made no response.

Back on Yellow Diamond’s command ship…

O’Neill finally answered the call. “Yes?”

“Skarn’s got a harmony barrier.”

“What’re you calling me for?”

“We have a weapon at our disposal that can destroy the harmony energies, and you know it,” Yellow Diamond said.

O’Neill narrowed his brow. “Which one are you talking about? Rohan? We’ve got him working around the clock over here. And then the eld-”

“No,” Yellow Diamond said. “We have six agents under Renee’s Expeditions from a world known as Equis Duo. Usually lent to you and Giorno. Known as the Mean Six by the rumor mill?”

“Ah…” O’Neill said. “Right. Them.”

“Normally I would not hesitate, but Skarn has proven exceptionally resourceful. He may find a way to recreate their power if we use them on him. Our defenses would fall instantly.”

O’Neill nodded. Yellow Diamond’s ship shuddered as one next to it exploded.

“Do you think you’ve taken down most of his resources?”

“He’s assuredly hiding at least a small group of ships elsewhere in the Congeries,” Yellow Diamond said. “Enough to lay waste to nations.”

O’Neill folded his hands. “Do you think you can make it through without them?”

“Not without exceedingly heavy casualties. I also have no way to prove that the secondary teams are getting through.”

O’Neill glanced off-screen – presumably gauging the responses of the other advisors. “I’ll send them over. But only use them once you’re close and can move in quickly. We want to catch him with his pants down, not give him a chance to turn this against us.”

Yellow Diamond nodded. “Understood.” She cut the transmission and turned back to her command. “Change formation – Alpha four-star. Push as fast as we can!”

The fleet took an overall arrowhead shape with the largest protomolecule planet spearheading everything. The speed of the ships increased, looking ready to ram the center of the Congeries. Which they were.

Skarn’s cones weren’t working for him anymore, so he mixed it up – creating a whirlwind made of blades the size of small moons, going for the protomolecule planets.

Yellow Diamond ground her teeth. He finally had the focus to deal with several of the planets at once. Now that he saw they might be a threat, he was taking them out.

“Defend the protomolecule if at all possible!” Yellow Diamond roared.

Ships began to crash onto the protomolecule planets.

Yellow Diamond would not slow the blue worlds for them. If the ships didn’t get off by the time they needed to crash right into Skarn’s front room, they would have to find a way to survive impact. Which was unlikely.

~~~

Minna woke up.

Above her, she saw strands of harmony.

Below her was a ground that shifted from hardwood to sheet metal in an instant, the morph cutting across her back. She hissed, standing up onto her feet.

She looked around. There was only one other person here – Lady Rarity. She was standing nearby, the light of her horn visible even under her power armor. She must have been straining herself keeping air around Minna.

Minna leaped onto her back without asking. “Awake.”

“Oh good, I didn’t want to stay in one place much longer,” Lady Rarity said. She glanced around. “There’s no entrance, and neither of us have the power to drill through this crust…”

“Skarn’s using harmony energy.”

“While I can use an Element of Generosity should the need arise, I was never infused with one’s power,” Lady Rarity said. “So any plan you may have about using that power will not work. …Not sure if it’d work even if I was Affix.”

“Mhm…” Minna narrowed her eyes. “Rarity, you need to tie yourself up with your own silk and find a why to hide your horn’s glow. Do it fast.”

Lady Rarity decided now was not the time to question things. She tied herself up with her silk and dimmed her horn. “You have an auto-bubble now. It’ll only last a few minutes and I wouldn’t move your head too q-”

“Shh,” Minna said, taking a dominating stance over Lady Rarity.

A squad of purple soldiers appeared out of a dimensional portal in front of them. They raised their weapons – and lowered them when they saw Minna.

“I have returned,” Minna said. “I am without armor or weapons, but I have brought a prisoner. Believed to be high value, was working alongside a subfleet commander.”

“Prisoner identity confirmed,” one of the soldiers said with a dry voice. “Lady Rarity, mid-high value target. Acceptable. Question: why are you in standard clothing?”

Minna didn’t look down at her black dress – to do so would out her as not being like them. “Lost my armor in combat. Better than nothing.”

There was no nod but Minna knew he had accepted her story. “Incursion contained. Returning to nest.” A portal opened up. Minna dragged Lady Rarity along – leaving her hammer behind. It would just be too conspicuous if they dragged that along with them. Minna was delighted that they weren’t demanding the armor be removed.

Then Minna knew they were inside the center of the Congeries. They were in a hallway that could fit a planet in it. And yet, it still looked like a normal hallway. The flecks of dust may have been the size of large islands, but they were still accurate.

Minna knew they wouldn’t be able to transmit dimensional coordinates out of here. Skarn had the entire place surrounded in a wall for more than one reason, after all.

They walked along the edge of a floorboard, a door every twenty meters or so. They entered the second door they came to, one marked with a symbol Minna hadn’t seen since she was barely more than an infant, but recognized instantly.

The nest. That’s what he’d just called it. The nest.

They opened the door.

The nest looked exactly as she remembered it. The entire area was covered in deep, black, emotionless metal. A green haze hung over the area, and yet there was no smell at all coming from it. Metal railways shot off in every direction and angle, speeding off into the miasma until they faded into the green. From the ceiling hung hundreds of pods with people inside them. The ones near the railways were full-grown people, asleep in a sludge that was either clear or just as green as the rest of the area.

In the distance, a large chandelier of smaller pods could be seen. The ones that were still growing.

She was pulled out of a tub a-

Minna used her ability on herself. If she allowed it to work, it did – she would have no traumatic flashbacks. Not here. She would just have a sense of unease. Possibly even a bit of fear.

She saw that, in the future, they were going to set a mechanical suit out for her to wear. She undressed before it arrived, since the suits plugged right into their bodies and cloth would get in the way. Most humans her age wouldn’t have been able to pull off standing nude without a sweat, but she had grown up with a unicorn for a mother. It wasn’t like they wore clothes most of the time, and Allure hadn’t made a big deal out of it unless Minna was out in public.

The harder part was walking into the suit without flinching. She didn’t want to be like them. She didn’t want to be indoctrinated. But she still saw herself in the future, walking around, without her brain being cut out.

She had to take in a breath to get herself to do it – but none of them noticed. She felt the spikes plug into her with a sharp pain. They were very uncomfortable, but the pain wasn’t enough to hinder focus except after the first moment.

Then she arrived.

Brell.

Minna hadn’t been able to sense her coming.

“My children…” she said.

Minna had to force her mind to calm down, force it to refuse the traumatic flashback.

She was so glad Brell couldn’t see her face. It would have betrayed her decidedly emotional state.

~~~

Eve and Corona did not wake up after they hit the ground.

They woke up just as the harmony field activated.

It activated while they weren't quite done falling through it. They felt a sharp burning sensation that prompted Seraphim to automatically divert the dimensional energy. The only issue was that Seraphim was protecting Eve, and not particularly Corona. The Stand still helped Corona, though since she was tall it didn’t think to extend the field beyond Eve to protect Corona’s feet.

Long story short, Corona’s feet were burnt off.

“GHAAAAAAAAAA!” Corona shouted.

“Right, right, hold in there, uh… oh brother, ground approaching.” Eve shook her head. “Heal your feet. I’ve got this.”

Corona winced, moving her healing magics to her nonexistent feet. She was able to create stumps, but that wasn’t exactly going to be easy to walk on. Good thing she had wings. Which she wasn’t using…

She spread them – but quickly realized what Eve was doing and closed them up again.

Eve had placed Seraphim right below them, a determined expression on her face. “Let’s try… no nuclear forces. Turn everything into radioactive particle soup. Hope you know how to cure radiation poisoning!”

Corona didn’t get a chance to say ‘yeah’ before Seraphim activated. The ground shifted beneath them from a coconut to a metal plate, and then to nothing as Seraphim localized physics to remove the ability for matter to even exist right in front of them. They fell into a hole that was being created as they fell. The ‘ground’ was eternally a couple of meters in front of them, no matter how fast they fell.

Corona started the radiation cure spells. “Those are some serious rads you’re giving us.”

“You’re welcome,” Eve said, glancing around nervously. “Guess I can drop these disguises now that it’s just us…”

“While we’re falling!?”

“This thing is the size of a sun, we’re going to be falling for a while!” She lit her horn, returning her mane to its normal, windswept appearance and purple color, the orange streak bringing a smile to her face. “Ah… that’s better.” She then popped out the green contact lenses she was wearing.

“Those weren’t an illusion?”

“Nope. Not even Lolo would see through those. Though I wouldn’t be able to hide from Flutterfree even if I tried.”

“She’s probably worried sick.”

Eve nodded solemnly. “I know she is. But she knows I’m out here, and that I have to do this. So let’s go kick some flank. Or bear-butt. I guess.”

“The term is ‘kicking ass’.”

“That word always sounds like people are being racist to donkeys,” Eve muttered.

Corona rolled her eyes, looking up. “Looks like the hole’s been sealed.”

“And lucky for us you’re a portable flashlight!”

Corona examined her glowing skin. “Yep. So what do we get to do in the tunnel of eternal falling?”

Eve shrugged. “Make a plan?”

“We drop through and start blowing stuff up.”

“Plan made.” Eve chuckled. “Targets?”

“Brell, Arthon, Skarn. Rest are just mooks.”

“Do we have any new defenses against their memory messing?”

“Instinctual protocol,” Corona said, tapping Raging Sights. “If I activate it I’ll forego logical thought and confusion, just reacting to stimuli.”

“Going berserk?”

“Basically.”

“Sweet. Wha-” Eve’s pupils dilated. “Seraphim’s connection is destabilizing.”

Corona snapped her fingers, forcing her own connection to open in front of them – but it was unstable as well. “Of course. Inside here, he wouldn’t allow a single portal out that wasn’t specially sanctioned. It would let people just pour in.”

“My rejection of reality is going to slip!”

Corona created a reality anchor around the area with several magic rings. “And now you can relax Seraphim. This’ll take care of everyth-”

The area they were falling through opened up – not because they had reached the bottom, but because someone had Shaped it to open up. They saw, for a moment, the actual interior of Skarn’s seat of power. It appeared as several large rectangular prisms fused together at odd angles, planetary statues of the bear and his family propped along the prisms at alien angles.

Deep in the center, they could see a metal sphere, inside of which something was glowing a dozen different vibrant colors, full of intense action. The Shaping Mechanism, presumably.

The next instant Arthon had a hand on both their necks.

Corona and Eve tried to fight – but the Shaping Mechanism activated on them. The very ceiling above them attacked them with a full rush of power, flattening them against Arthon’s hands. The bones in the backs of their necks cracked, but one could live with a broken neck.

Corona maintained consciousness. She lit her horn, blasting Arthon in the face with a death spell. It squirmed around him, moved by careful spatial distortion.

All it took was a simple flick to her horn to bring her world to darkness.

~~~

It turned out that, yes, being microscopic got you through the harmony barrier.

Or maybe they just got lucky, Alushy didn’t know. If being microscopic had been the answer, one would assume Skarn had tried it already.

Then again, maybe he couldn’t do shrinking or growing without control over shaping, or whatever.

“You look distracted,” Nae said as she fired more psychic bullets at approaching enemy soldiers. They were standing on what was currently a plane of orange peels, beneath the harmony layer, realizing they had no way to breach the barrier.

“Thinking about shitty tactics or something,” Alushy muttered, firing her guns. All of her bullets were dodged. “Gah. They don’t make it fun. You have to use the complete bullshit attacks on them to do anything, and it’s boring when you do that!”

Jade was shrinking the soldiers one at a time and stepping on them. Those few that managed to figure out how to not be shrunk were crushed by giant rocks.

Suddenly, all three of them had cuts all over them.

“A special one exploded, right?” Jade asked, hissing at the pain. “Right?”

“There is literally no way to know,” Nae said. “Not a-” something hit her in the chest, forcing her to the ground.

“Nae!” Jade said, extending a hand. Then she realized one of her reality anchor bracelets had broken off. She still had five more, but the fact that one had broken off and she didn’t know about it was very concerning. “Alushy…”

“Fine. Absolute bullshit maximum level.” Alushy put a hoof to her mouth and coughed. A wave of dark shadows shot out of her and surrounded the three of them. The shadows of the millions of souls she had killed in her lifetime appeared before them and laid waste to the surrounding battlefield, tearing the pale soldiers limb from limb, throwing their loose body parts asunder.

The shadows cleared. As far as the eye could see, there were dead soldiers.

“Right…” Alushy walked over to the still form of Nae and bit her neck. The Ga’s eyes opened wide, flashing red. “Up an’ at ‘em, vampy.”

“Did you jus-”

“You’re welcome,” Alushy said.

“I’m never going to be able to eat garlic bread again…”

Jade blinked. “That’s the first thing you think of?”

“Uh, yeah? It’s not like being a vampire is going to be a problem in this day and age. There’s blood manufacturing, super sunscreen, and video screen mirrors. But synthetic garlic just isn’t the same.”

“I miss when being a vampire was something special,” Alushy muttered.

At this point two figures fell from the sky – a human and a pony. One was a version of Sunset Shimmer who looked somewhat normal, but had an artificial leg. The human was an auburn haired individual with heterochromatic eyes and a big sword.

They landed like ragdolls.

“JANE!” Sunny shouted. “I thought ragdoll physics was off!”

“Guess it wasn’t,” Jane said, regaining control of her body and standing up. “Alright, where are they?”

“Dead,” Alushy said. “Now I need more souls for absolute bullshit. No offense to this army I just killed but they’re small fish.”

“How did you guys get through the harmony barrier?” Jade asked.

Sunny rubbed the back of her head. “I think we’ve been blessed by so many Trees of Harmony at this point…”

“Skarn had to grind a lot of them up to do this,” Jane said, grinding her teeth. “Their essences must have recognized us. He’s gonna pay.”

“Oh, of course, of course!” Alushy smirked. “But, one problem, how are we going to get to him? We’re standing on top of his shield right now. Not even complete bullshit can dig miles into the earth.”

Jane fixed Alushy with a blank look that slowly grew into the smile of someone who’d had a horrible couple of days and had just now caught a break. She pulled a purple pickaxe out of her inventory. As it moved, a magical aura became visible, like a film of soap around the tool. Occasionally bright sparks of electricity would fly off the tool, driving home the unsettling aura it produced.

“Jane…” Sunny said.

“This was a job I was always meant to do. Me. I am going to fucking mine this goddammed hellhole’s final defenses with my trusty iridium pickaxe.” She gripped the handle. “Well, old friend… Here we go.”

“What’s a pickaxe going to do, exactly?” Jade asked.

“It’s magic,” Sunny explained. “The most important enchantment being efficiency level ‘I pressed the nine key more times than I can count’. You might want to hold onto something.”

“There’s nothing to hold onto but dead bodies,” Nae said. “…Actually, that sounds like a good ideAAAAAA-”

Jane had started digging.

No one saw her pickaxe even hit the ground before the giant square had formed and they were falling into it.

The hole was filled in naturally, but there was no transdimensional magic to draw attention to them. They would cross the boundary unnoticed.

~~~

“Right, so, news,” Pinkie said as she led her team to the dimensional bay of Yellow Diamond’s flagship. “Bad news, Corona and Eve got their necks snapped. Good news, they’re not dead.”

Flutterfree put her hooves to her mouth. “W-wha?”

Pinkie shook her head. “Right, sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll dial it back. Arthon’s keeping them alive, thinking he can use them to convince his father to extort us into surrendering.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, that won’t work,” Nova said. “O’Neill won’t negotiate over hostages.”

“Skarn believes in honor,” Jotaro reminded them. “He will not resort to demanding our surrender through hostages.”

“Arthon could turn out to be a manipulative bastard and do it anyway,” Vriska pointed out.

Pinkie nodded. “All possibilities. But they’re together and alive. Minna too – though I think the time-shift of the events are a liiiittle wonky right now. It’s been several minutes for her since I last saw her, pretty sure.”

“So, if we know where they are, why are we here?” Flutterfree asked. “I know I said I trusted you, but I’d like to know.”

“You’re in charge, all you had to do was ask,” Pinkie said, smirking. “We’re going in as part of the main invasion force.”

“But they’re stuck,” Nova said.

“Not for looooong~!” Pinkie trilled with an ominous tone of voice.

A dimensional portal opened, revealing six ponies that vaguely resembled the Elements of Harmony, but clearly weren’t, the six of them giving the impression they would be what the Elements of Harmony would see if they looked through a mirror of corruption and darkness.

The unicorn ‘Twilight’ was dark-coated like Brutalight, but had a bright mane and an air of darkness around her. She was not the leader, but instead the point was the ‘Applejack’; a blue mare with smooth features and an intelligent expression. A red-and-green-maned ‘Rainbow Dash’ strode behind them in steel boots, while a bright red ‘Fluttershy’ with a permanently angry expression flew above them. Near the back was a blackish ‘Rarity’ with a yellow mane and a glazed-over expression.

The ‘Pinkie’ was just a slightly redder version of Pinkie with a sharper mane. The primary team didn’t even flinch – they were used to seeing crazy Pinkies at this point.

Flutterfree opted to watch these mysterious dark reflections of her and her friends for a moment.

“Why did we become good guys again…?” the ‘Rainbow Dash’ muttered, putting hooves over her face.

“Because we realized zat being ‘evil’ was razer unfortunate, Grayscale,” the ‘Applejack’ said.

“Yeah, who the buck even cares why? It happened.” The ‘Fluttershy’ shrugged. “And now we get to fight in a super-space war.”

“Like, Havocwing,” the ‘Rarity’ said, “of course you would want the whatever war thing. It’s your thing. But some of us prefer not to go there. Cha.”

“Because you’re morons,” Grayscale muttered.

“Oh, uh, that’s just me, right?” the ‘Rarity’ asked “Or… am I missing the joke…?”

“Yeah, you’re down the twister, Insipid,” the ‘Twilight’ said. “Not an immense difficulty, merely a factoid of your psyche. In principle.”

“Uuuugh, Shadow, why do you have to talk like that when you’re trying to be comforting?”

“Uh… being stupid isn’t a problem?”

The ‘Applejack’ facehooved. “C'est la vie… Tact, Zadow, tact.”

Shadow nodded. “Ah. Right. So, what’s the plan, Curaçao?”

“I know, but per’aps-”

“Talk to the primary team and give them a piece of our minds,” the ‘Pinkie’ finished, looking up from a book she was reading – Increasing Awareness, by A Lot of Pinkie Pies. She was holding the book with a tendril of blood coming out a slit in her back.

“Oh this should be good!” Pinkie said, appearing in front of her double. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie, you’re Red Velvet!”

Velvet smirked. “You’ve gone and messed yourself up in the head there.”

“You’re one to talk!”

“Word of advice – get over yourself.”

Pinkie twitched, turning to Curaçao. “Hey, miss leader-”

“I’m the leader too!” Havocwing blurted.

Pinkie ignored her. “Weren’t you saying something about tact?”

“Ah, see, I was, but zat’s only when speaking with zose who mean well.” The blue mare fixed her gaze on Pinkie’s. “You plan to use us.”

“Duh, have to break through a barrier of pure harmony energy, and you guys are like evil elements that somehow turned good sorta-kinda and we can use that to break through it!”

“Oh, no, it’s more zan zat, les ami. Velvet?”

A tendril of blood dropped a single bloody page of the book in front of Pinkie. The one with Redshirts listed under the heading ‘Important Tropes.’

“…Ponyfeathers,” Pinkie muttered.

Flutterfree gasped. “Pinkie! You were going to do that on purpose?”

“Uh… yeah,” Pinkie admitted, looking at the ground. “Bu-”

“Can it!” Havocwing shouted. “We’re fighting this war because we owe the others. We have no intention of dying here today! Kapeesh?”

“Kapeesh!” Insipid echoed.

“Well if we don’t find at least some interesting redshirts we’re not safe!” Pinkie blurted. “We’re heading right into the belly of the beast and it’s just us! I don’t like those odds.”

“We like zose odds,” Curaçao said, raising an eyebrow. “We certainly qualify as ‘’eroes’ do we not? And yet, we will be charging in alone, wizout any accompanying cannon fodder.”

“Because we don’t need anybody to protect us!” Havocwing shouted.

Velvet giggled. “They’ll all tremble and shake… They’ll probably try to eat me! It’ll be like beating up my old self!”

Grayscale stared at her with mild disgust.

Shadow cleared her throat. “I think what my compatriots are trying to say is that, despite our dark and villainous past and the remnants of certain unsavory particulates within our essences, we are not resorting to careful manipulation of random ‘expendables’ deemed ‘slightly interesting’ enough to be included in a narrative, through which your lives may be perpetuated and ours annihilated.”

Insipid groaned. “Shadow, like, condense it? Cha?”

Shadow blinked. “Or to put it simpler: Pinkie, fuck you.”

Havocwing let out a laugh. “Ooooh, burn!”

Flutterfree laid her head on the floor. “I’m terribly sorry f-”

“Not you,” Grayscale muttered. “You’re the nice one who wouldn’t hurt a fly, right?”

“…Do you see those wing-blades on her?” Insipid muttered.

“She’s still the nice one. Sorry for everything.” Grayscale narrowed her eyes.

Curaçao nodded. “I ‘ave ‘eard much of you, Flutterfree. You apologize so much zat such an action becomes almost meaningless.”

This comment shook Flutterfree to her core. “I… Wh…”

“Is this your way of telling me to apologize?” Pinkie blurted.

“Nope!” Velvet said, behind her. “It’s our way of saying ‘nice try’!”

“…I wouldn’t mind an apology,” Insipid muttered.

Pinkie muttered. “Look. I… I don’t want anyone to suffer. But there are going to be people and ponies who have to. In a war like this, if nobody dies, there are going to be permanent consequences.” She looked behind her. She realized something painful.

Nova had suffered emotionally with Sunburst and Stardust. Flutterfree had gotten vampirism and bladed knives and her spirituality to struggle with. Jotaro had lost family, lost trust, and had to deal with a world where emotions were rarely hidden. Vriska’s list of problems could fill a book.

She’d had some difficulties with being Aware early on, but she hadn’t really suffered long-lasting harm in any way yet, had she?

“…It’s my turn,” Pinkie said, pupils shrinking. “Oh no no no…”

Curaçao sighed and looked Pinkie in the eyes. “You ‘ave my condolences. But we will not be taking ze ‘it for you.”

“Maybe we can compare notes on suffering later,” Shadow suggested. “Pretty confident we have most of you undeniably trumped.”

“Wanna bet?” Vriska asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I said most.”

Havocwing coughed. “AHEM! Don’t we have a white barrier to take out or something?”

“You do,” Yellow Diamond said, having just teleported into the room. “The fleet is close enough. Do you six have the Elements of Pandemonium?”

Shadow lit her horn and summoned five dark necklaces to them, placing a sixth tiara on Curaçao’s head. The crystals within were of deep, dark colors.

“Wh- hey! Where’s my crown!?” Havocwing blurted.

“Guess, like, Curaçao’s more leadery than you?” Insipid suggested.

“The decisions of deviated magic artifacts mean nothing to us,” Curaçao said. “We are sisters, forever.” She turned to Yellow Diamond. “Just tell us when.”

“Now,” Yellow Diamond said. “You’ll be on a protomolecule planet prepared to ram the central wall. Do what those artifacts were designed to do. Destroy the harmony.”

The six of them nodded. Yellow Diamond then teleported them away.

“…Pinkie,” Nova said, looking to her. “Should you go back? Stop fighting?”

“One of you will die if I do that,” Pinkie said. “It won’t save me from any pain. Or any of you.”

Flutterfree hugged her. “Whatever it’s going to be, we’ll be here for you.”

“If you can.”

“…If we can,” Flutterfree admitted.

Pinkie sighed. “Well, we might as well pick out a speeder and get behind this planet. We’re smashing in! Might as well get to the Kicking of the Dog quicker rather than later. HeHAhah. …Let’s go.”

They ran off to find a speeder.

~~~

Skarn took his hands off the Shaping Mechanism controls – he could afford to let it run on automatic now that he had fully programmed it for defending this place. He turned around – both of his remaining children were standing behind him. Brell had with her an armored prisoner and a small squad of her creepy ‘children’, while Arthon was holding two broken individuals Skarn recognized.

“Prisoners?” Skarn asked. “From Brell I would have expected this, but you Arthon?”

“Use them,” Arthon said. “They’re alive. Tell the Merodi you have them hostage and make them surrender.”

“No,” Skarn said.

“Can you drop your distorted view of honor for one second and think about the art?”

“Art and honor go hand in hand, my son. Maybe one day you will understand this.”

“Or maybe you’re just senile,” Arthon glared.

“…Do you wish to challenge me now?”

Arthon shuffled his feet. “No, father. I do not.”

“Oh, thank the Tower,” Brell muttered. “That would have been disastrous.”

Arthon nodded slowly.

Skarn pressed his hands together. “Brell, what about you?”

“I’m asking permission to bless this one. To create the first nonhuman among my children.”

Skarn looked Lady Rarity up and down. “…Do as you will, I cannot keep you from your art. It is yours, even if I do not find meaning in it personally.”

Brell bowed. “Thank you, father.” She left with her squad, one of the shorter ones dragging Lady Rarity along.

Skarn placed a hand on the controls again, this time fixing Corona and Eve’s bodies. Their eyes flew open.

“Skarn…” Eve said, narrowing her eyes.

Skarn held a hand up at Corona. “Do not attempt to attack or I will have to execute you. I would rather not do that.”

“Why do you care?” Corona blurted. “You toss around entire civilizations like they’re nothing! What are we to you?”

“Old friends,” Skarn said. “…Or who I thought could be friends.”

“What made you think we’d ever be okay with what you do here?!”

“I’m a patient being,” Skarn said. “I would have slowly shaped your society to appreciation of true art over the centuries before revealing my work. You would have voluntarily joined yourselves to the Congeries after that – and would have become shapers of your own. The beauty of harmony would be added to the lattice of existence!” He held his arms wide. “It would have been glorious! But you had to find me suspicious.”

“Of course we did!” Eve blurted. “We had no information on you! You were just a guy who showed up, acted powerful, and gave us a lot of things!”

“Your government has no Intelligence or Secret Service,” Skarn muttered. “That shouldn’t matter to you.”

Eve and Corona looked at him with smug smirks.

“…You do have Intelligence....” Skarn stood up tall. “Well played. I thought I was safe. But it looks as if you do have secrets.”

“When you only have a couple you learn to keep them really, really well,” Eve said.

“I suppose my spy just wasn’t in a high enough position… Perhaps I should have targeted one of you instead…”

Corona blinked. “Wait…”

“Oh, yes, Allure’s daughter was placed there on purpose to gauge your higher politics. She gathered a lot of information before I dropped by to collect. Such a sweet girl, unlike all Brell’s other mindless brutes. A bit like my other son, except less relatable...”

“You did that on purpose!?” Eve blurted.

“Oh, of course. Place a crying, bruised, and battered child in front of someone who is emotionally vulnerable and something’s bound to happen.” Skarn looked into the distance. “She’s been given such a beautiful life because of it. Shame I have to take it away from her.”

Eve thought, for a moment, about bargaining for peace – but then she remembered what Skarn did as part of his life. He destroyed civilizations without batting an eye. “…How can you think you’re consistent?”

“He’s not,” Arthon said. “He’s mad.”

“All the best artists are,” Skarn said with a shrug. “Imprison them, Arthon. You can do whatever you want with them after the war is over.”

Arthon nodded. “They shall make a good addition to a very particular cell.”

Skarn put both his hands back on the globe that controlled the Shaping Mechanism. “I’m glad you’re already thinking of the personal aesthetics. …Speaking of, has anyone seen Torvost in a while?”

Arthon tensed. “…He’s dead.”

Skarn let out a deep sigh. “…Not surprising, but still an ache on my old heart. How I wish he had learned.” Skarn shook his head. “Just go. Do what you can about the incoming fleet. They look like they’re about to try something.”

Arthon vanished, taking Eve and Corona with him.

~~~

“No reports of Minna?” Allure asked O’Neill.

“None,” O’Neill said. “There was something of Alushy, but that was for a brief moment and we aren’t even sure where her magic signature was coming from.”

Allure nodded, looking at the hologram display of the battle. The red sphere of Skarn’s holding was surrounded in a barrier of white. Red dots and shapes representing his larger constructs were attacking the fleet from all sides, decimating it.

The number of remaining forces was 49%.

But they were still moving. The largest protomolecule planet seemed agonizingly close to the Congeries’ center. Just a little more and they would be touching the barrier… Just a little more…

“Breach detected!” the Research Overhead beeped. “Portals opening all over Celestia City!”

O’Neill pressed a button. “Yellow Diamond, defense commanders, this is O’Neill. We have to jam all dimensional communications, repeat, all dimensional communications. We’ve been found. You’re on your own.” He moved his finger to another button. “JAM ALL DIMENSIONAL PORTALS!”

In other locations in the bunker, other generals and commanders had to press buttons of their own. All dimensional communication was cut – no portals in or out of Celestia City. The hologram of the offense vanished in an instant, just before they unleashed their attack on the harmony barrier.

Allure gulped. They had no way of knowing what was happening.

“How bad is it?” O’Neill asked.

“The breaches mostly consisted of ground forces,” Thor said. “…The majority of them are heading straight here.”

“What’s near here besides us?”

“One of the larger dimensional drives. They could destroy it and wipe out much of the city – or they could possibly take advantage of it and bring in more soldiers.”

O’Neill grunted. “Right, can’t let either of those happen. Third division, get yourself up on defense of that drive! Take seventh with you! Rowan, I need our backups in front, protecting us! Allure, sorry, looks like you might get caught in the middle of a firefight.”

Allure made a soft whimper but nodded her head.

She just wanted to know if Minna was okay.

Comments

[Pseudonym1]

Okay, I gave it some time, and I've decided to reveal some codes that I've found. The first code is in Sombra's Clipshow, and the second code is in Sombra's Clipshow 2: Electric Boogaloo. I'm going to put spoiler text over the rest in case people want to figure it out on their own.

The first code translates to this, after being sent through a base-64 decoder:

s Testament includes a small song or poem at the end that makes no sense. It is considered the Nineteenth book of the Testament, and is simply titled The Choice. It speaks of a choice all will make. Its meaning has eluded scholars for the entire time it has been known to exist, and its inclusion is a mystery. Due to the eighteenth book’s recent fulfilled prophecies with the English incident, it is suspected that The Choice speaks of what Convergence perceived would come. There may not be time to consi
One is replaced.
end is never the end is never the end is 130/157 the end is never.
B has the secret.
C has the drive.
Everything you care about will divide.

Now, the only thing I've drawn from this whole block of text is that 'One is replaced' must be referring to Twilight and Twilight X. Probably. I did have a whole spiel about the Book of Psalms from the Testament, seeing as it's the 19th book, and how the 119th psalm contains a passage of 130/157, but the author themself has told me that it has nothing to do with the bible or testament or anything like that.

I've got another theory, but it's super huge speculation. When Twilight told the crew that she wasn't the original Twilight, three of her friends were the most adversely affected. Applejack stopped being her friend, Renee lost all of her trust, and Pinkie became depressed. It was talked about in that order, specifically. If the order is significant, and that is what the code is talking about, then that would mean Renee has the secret, and Pinkie has the drive, whatever that means. I honestly don't think that's it, but it's the only group of three people I can think of off the top of my head. Now on to the second code.

Here's the translated text: DARLINGSS DARLINGS WAS THE LAST CODE TOO DIFFICUPT FOR YOU TO FIGURE OUTZ SUCH A SHAME REALLY IT WAS SUCH AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TOO YOU COULD HAVEG KNOWN SO MUCH AND YET YOU THREW IT ALL AWAY IT WAS SUCH AN EASY CODE TOO ALLE YOU HAD TO DO WAS NOTICEN IT WAS A BASE SIXTY FOURX ENCRYPTION AND GOK FROM THERE BUTF YOU DIDNT SO SAD YOU POOR SAPS MAYBE THIS EASIER CODE WILL GIVE YOU THE CHANCEL TO DECODE THEY OTHER ONE BUT IMX NOT CRUEL WELL I AM BUT I LIKE TO THROW SECRETS INTO THE PAST FOR YOU SOMETIMESX I AM BEYOND IMPORTENTG AND THE END TIMES ARE APPROACHINGZ WITH ME EXISTENCEV WILL SPLITV IN TWO AND I WILL WATCH AND LAUGHU FOR I KNOW THEH END

ENJOYT THIS WHILE YOU CAN MY END IS NEVERF ALWAYS ANDK CERTAINLY SOON

GOE BACK AND SEEI WHAT YOU MISSEDX

This one took some time but wasn't too difficult to solve. And no, those little typos aren't actually typos, they're what you get when you actually fully solve the whole thing. SPZGENXKFLYXXEGZVVUHTFKEIX <--- These are the extra letters scattered around the whole passage, in order. I can't really make out what this could mean, but it's probably just to throw off any automatic online cryptogram decoders. Now, clearly this message is from Mattie, the masochistic Aware Rarity. As you read, it seems like it's just to help anyone who didn't solve the first one, which I'll admit, I didn't until I solved the second one. I wasn't able to extract more meaning from this whole passage.

Now, there is a third thing unrelated to the two codes that I've figured out with the help of another commenter. I don't remember who it was, but I'll go back and edit this comment when I find them. This commenter helped me figure out how to read the Horrorterror language. I don't remember any specific quotes, but I'll go back and edit some in here. It's really just a cryptogram except with funky characters that mostly resemble the letter they're replacing. Figure out how to read it, and you too can understand the prophecies of the gods! Not really. They dont usually say anything TOO important, just little tidbits of information for the people who bother trying to read what they say.

Anyways, that's all I've figured out. The reason I'm writing this is because I haven't seen anyone else talk about it for the last month, and sharing info about ARGs usually helps them get solved. I PM'd the author to make sure it was ok to post this, and in return they helped me a tiny bit. They told me that My psalm theory was incorrect, and that everything in my comment is enough to solve the whole puzzle, and that I was really close to figuring it out. Anyways, have a nice day everybody!

[FanOfMostEverything]

Not that Corona had any idea what it meant. That Rainbow Dash captain had a lot of stories to tell, but they jumped all over the place so much that Corona had a hard time keeping track of it all, especially since so few of them ever got finished due to sudden combat.

Yeah, sounds about right for a Noble Juror.

…Do you know? she asked telepathically.

Yes. Eve, that’s a horrible disguise.

Also, asking "Do you know my secret?" is a terrible way to keep one.

Ye gods, this is tense. As Pinkie said, the worst part is the incomplete information. To know that something terrible will happen, but not the specifics...
Well, we'll see what happens.

[Sammo]

As someone looking at this story's description and timeline for the first time, I have absolutely no idea what to make of this. That timeline alone is one hell of a mindfuck blender.

[VoidTemplar2000]

9683263
Then you are basically on the right track. Just wait until another chapter comes along

[AlphaOmega0001]

I've been reading and catching up with this fic for the last month, and this is the chapter I catch up on? Holy celestia

[nos2342]

What story are the mean six from originally?

[GMBlackjack]

9688763
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/203605/crisis-equestria/thread/299241/crisis-equestria-chapters-re-uploaded

Behold, this amazing, AMAZING work. You should read it. I was gonna save the shoutout to the interlude for the arc next chapter, but if you ask, you shall receive.

-GM, master of CRISIS: Equestria.

[nos2342]

9688817
Thank you very much. I read this years ago and lost touch with it...now to discover if it was finished...

[GMBlackjack]

9688831
It was not finished, but you're in luck, my other project The League of Sweetie Belles is going to visit it. And when the LSB visits a dead fic, it gets revived. There will be an ending, of sorts, though definitely not what the original author intended.

But you'll be able to have something.

-GM, master of something.

[FallenFromGlory]

Good lord I did it. I made it. I'm here. I'm tired.

I love this story. It is incredible, and full of stuff both familiar and new. You are an incredible author who has turned tropes I hate into an entire story worth reading. Well done.

(loved the Austraeoh cameo btw. Got a few chuckles from me. I am still not caught up with that behemoth.)

[kistecool]

she was strolling down the speeder bays of the Austraeoh, so named because it's captain was a Rainbow Dash who said that was how it needed to be.

it’s

[kistecool]

9681518
Looking back with the chapter list... Wow. How didn’t I see that?

[omegasnowfall]

9681518

I more think the second code is Tower!Renee via time shenanigans.

[RoboRed]

Well, good news is that Eve and Minna didn't go far (relatively) and they were with Corona and had Redshirts on hand to cover their bases.
Bad news is that all fell apart in a goddamn hurry.

“Incoming message!” the communications officer declared. “Yellow Diamond is ordering us to fuse with subfleet nineteen.”

“Nineteen?”

Friggin' Nineteen. As soon as that was announced...
And of course of all people to show up it's Brell. I wouldn't doubt it if it was because of some special kind of connection to Minna. Or maybe it's just Ka having her show up.
Also, it's...astoundingly frustrating how much that Congerie mental trickery is countering MU, even if they are winning at the moment...ish.

The bones in the backs of their necks cracked, but one could live with a broken neck.

“Right, so, news,” Pinkie said as she led her team to the dimensional bay of Yellow Diamond’s flagship. “Bad news, Corona and Eve got their necks snapped. Good news, they’re not dead.”

Flutterfree put her hooves to her mouth. “W-wha?”

Pinkie shook her head. “Right, sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll dial it back.

Wowwee, that was a bit of an awkward laugh had back there. That's not the type of thing you read every day.
Speaking of Primary team, they're definitely not okay. They're falling apart pretty quick and Jotaro's pretty much the anchor of the team right now.

“You really need to get back to being yourself,” Nova said. “Seriously, I’m used to fighting the Pinkies that have gone psycho. You’re making me want to shoot you out of reflex.”

God, ain't that the truth. Fighting/psycho Pinkies are quickly turning into a "kill on sight" situation. Those encounters have flat-out never gone well.

She realized something painful.

Nova had suffered emotionally with Sunburst and Stardust. Flutterfree had gotten vampirism and bladed knives and her spirituality to struggle with. Jotaro had lost family, lost trust, and had to deal with a world where emotions were rarely hidden. Vriska’s list of problems could fill a book.

She’d had some difficulties with being Aware early on, but she hadn’t really suffered long-lasting harm in any way yet, had she?

Should be default emotion at this point but I am very concerned.

Glad to see the Mean Six show up again. I like that bunch. Let's just hope with all that bravado-spouting they make it out of this afterwards.

And of course...

“There’s also the third option,” O’Neill said. “Something unexpected happens.”

He just had to go and fuckin' say it and things have cone sideways.

Speaking of O'Neill, seems like his position's been made known on the Eve debacle though the narration. Fits his character as far as I'm concerned.

Other stuff:

Corona was not on the Andromeda at the moment – she was strolling down the speeder bays of the Austraeoh, so named because it’s captain was a Rainbow Dash who said that was how it needed to be. Apparently it meant something in her home universe.

Ah, so it's specifically that Rainbow Dash. Coolio. I'll just pretend that the story's been completed where she's from.

Allure looked at her chosen warriors.

Jade, Alushy, and Nae.

Now that's a lively combination.

“What’s a pickaxe going to do, exactly?” Jade asked.

“It’s magic,” Sunny explained. “The most important enchantment being efficiency level ‘I pressed the nine key more times than I can count’. You might want to hold onto something.”

HERS IS THE PICKAXE THAT PIERCES THE DIMENSIONS!!!