Unity: A Tale of Arcadia

by Kieva Lynn

Book Four: Chapter Eight

Book Four: Our Worlds At War

Chapter Eight

Cloudsdale. Pinkie Pie had returned from the city's engine facilities to the site of the battle with Morgana in Gunmar- "Wait." She thought. "We can't keep saying 'Morgana in Gunmar's body.' It's too awkward, we need a single name. Something like... O.o! 'Morgunmar!' Or maybe 'Gungana!' 'Mormar?' No that sucks. Okay, Gungana it is!" Pinkie grinned as she surveyed the battle with Gungana. Jim and Rainbow Dash were still fighting in close with swords. Rarity was keeping her distance, wielding a bow in her magic aura, and Twilight was charging up her magic for a spell. Presumably a powerful one, too, considering how long she was taking. Claire and Toby were watching for any opening they could find, but thus far nothing was apparent. Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen, and Applejack...

"Pinkie!" The farm mare galloped up to Pinkie's side.

"Perfect timing A.J.!" Pinkie said. "Things are about to get really interesting!"

Applejack stared at the battle playing out before them. "This ain't interesting enough for you!?"

"Just wait." Pinkie smiled. "Aaaaaany minute now..."

XXXXX

If humans had named the spell Twilight was preparing, they probably would have gone with something like 'Thor's Hammer' or 'Olympian Thunderbolt.' Ponies just called it Shatterbolt. It was a very potent lightning spell, made not as an offensive attack, but a refining tool. Ponies, like humans, had long ago learned that there were metals that couldn't be separated from their ores by simply melting the ore and skimming off the light impurities, since the metals themselves were too light to separate from the ore when melted. Humans built massive facilities, drawing more power than whole cities, to blast the ore with electric arcs which split the metal free. Ponies, of course, just used magic.

It seemed like an odd spell for a battle, but Gunmar's body was made of stone, and Twilight had seen this spell crack boulders in two. As the spell finished casting, she yelled for everyone to get clear. A bolt lanced down from the clear sky, it's aim true, striking directly on top of Gungana's head. The results were less impressive than Twilight had hoped. Some fragments of rock were blasted free from the outer shell of the body, but their enemy wasn't stopped. Wasn't even slowed down, really.

"How many times must I tell you?" A voice whispered through the air, "You cannot win."

"Oh we'll see about that!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Side by side with Jim again, she parried Gungana's attacks while Jim chipped away at their foe. Claire tried to open a portal directly beneath Gungana, but she simply grabbed the outer rim of the portal and climbed back out, Claire's attempt to close the portal and cut their enemy in two also failing to work.

"Rainbow Dash is right!" Twilight shouted. "We will defeat you!"

"And if you do? So what? Do you not know the universe itself is winding down? Entropy is unstoppable. All will die. All will fade. All will come to naught in the end." The voice taunted. "Your struggles are futile."

Twilight closed her eyes. Could it be right? She felt a hoof on her shoulder, and looked to see Rarity, smiling. "Nothing is futile if we believe darling."

"Yeah, but..."

"But maybe help us fight now and work this out later!" Rainbow Dash shouted at them.

Gungana took advantage of Dash's temporary distraction. She unleashed a blast of magic that knocked everyone further away, then started walking towards Twilight. "The Dark speaks true." She said, and raised her sword high, planning to bring it down on the unicorn's head. Before anyone could react, a wall of white light appeared in the way, preventing her attack on Twilight. "What!?"

Morgan stood next to Fluttershy, her hands glowing white. "I know not what you truly are. But your reign of terror ends now!"

"But dearest Morgan, I am you..." Gungana sneered.

"Never."

"Think you that Merlin will believe that?" Gungana said, and Morgan faltered a bit at her words, allowing the shield around Twilight to weaken. But by then Twilight had recovered enough to add her own power to the shield as well.

"It wants you dead Morgana! Why not refuse to fight for it!?" Twilight shouted.

"Would that I could... But the Dark comes with the dark, and I have no choice. None of us do. Free will is an illusion. Here, let me show you..." Gungana raised Gunmar's Decimar Sword high, held in both hands, and began to channel magic into the blade. A sickly greenish light began to spread slowly outwards in all directions. It passed over the Element Bearers, the Trollhunters, even Morgan, with no effect and kept expanding.

"Twi, what's she doin'?" Applejack shouted.

It was Morgan who answered. "This is what I feared! She is pouring all of her magic into Gunmar's blade, massively amplifying the mind controlling enchantment upon it! My magic protects me, and your armor apparently keeps you safe, but as it grows it will take control of every other thinking being it encounters!"

"So she's turned the sword into an A.O.E." Toby said.

"I know not what that means." Morgan said, "But the aura will expand to encompass this entire city of clouds if she is not stopped."

Rainbow Dash's eyes went wide in fear. "Omigosh omigosh omigosh! What do we do!?"

And just then, there was a mild shudder as Cloudsdale came to a stop at its new coordinates. "Perfect timing!" Pinkie Pie cheered. She hopped to Dash's side and whispered into her ear.

"But wait a minute Pinkie! We didn't try that before because we knew it wouldn't work!" Dash argued.

"It'll work now! Trust me Dashie! Do it."

Rainbow Dash shrugged and blasted off straight up into the sky, building speed, before turning and diving straight back down, aiming for a spot just a few feet from Gungana. She struck the clouds, releasing as much of her pegasus cloud dispersal magic as possible, causing a giant hole, far, far too wide for Gungana to simply grab the edges and haul herself back up, to form, and with no support she fell, screaming, as the Decimar sword slipped from her grasp and the mind control spell cut off.

Dash landed next to her friends just in time to hear Claire asking "But Pinkie what good will this do? We already figured out she'll just be running around on the ground now!"

"Eeyup. I doubt the fall'll hurt her." Applejack agreed.

"Silly fillies!" Pinkie grinned, "It's not the fall that hurts you, it's the sudden stop at the end!" At the sight of everyone facepalming/facehoofing the obvious joke, Pinkie added "Or, in this case, what that sudden stop is into. Take a look!" She motioned to the hole.

They stepped to the edge of the hole, and looked down... Into the active lava-filled crater of Mount Palamino. "Huh." Was all Jim could say.

"Eeyupperooni! Rock crushes scissors, but lava melts rock!"

"Pinkie this is dangerous!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "If that thing decides to blow it's top while Cloudsdale is right overhead...!"

"Yeah, I guess I should go tell that nice stallion at the control center it's okay to move now." Pinkie mused. "But really, I'm not getting any Pinkie Sense tells for 'volcanic erruption' so we should be fine."

"There's a tell for that?" Applejack asked.

"Oh A. J., there's a tell for everything. In fact..." Pinkie suddenly went stiff, then arched her back like a cat while spinning her tail like a propeller.

"Please tell me that's not the volcano tell." Toby said.

"Nope! That's the 'The fight's not quite over' tell." Pinkie answered.

Everyone looked down through the hole, to see the half melted, glowing hot body of Gunmar climbing from the caldera, lava streaming off of it. "Oh come on! How do you walk away from that!?" Jim exclaimed.

"The dark magic in use here is potent." Morgan said. "I know not how to banish it."

Twilight considered the issue. "Potent, yes, but not perfect. Look, the lava has done a lot of damage, and the body is so hot it's glowing... How can we use that?"

"Hey Jimbo?" Toby said.

"Yeah Tobes?" Jim asked.

"Ever see Alien 3?"

"Not as good as the first two." Jim replied.

"Yeah," Toby said, "But you remember how they killed the alien in that movie?"

A smile spread over Jim's face. "Hey Dash? When they say pegasai control the weather, does that include things like ice storms?"

"That's brilliant!" Twilight exclaimed before Dash could answer. "Rainbow Dash! The biggest, nastiest, coldest ice storm ever! Quick!"

"Quick's my middle name!" Dash saluted. She flew away into the nearby weather factory, and returned mere moments later with an entire flock of pegasai close behind. A shudder, as of powerful engines switching on, ran through the clouds, and vast dense clouds of supercooled ice particles began to pour from the factory's stacks. "What'dya say Flutters? You up for this?"

Fluttershy started to shrink back, but then a determined look came over her face. "Let's do this."

The pegasai took flight, whelling all around the cloud of ice, shaping it, guiding it, embuing it with powerful winds, driving the temperatures within ever lower, lower than they had ever pushed any winter storm below, so cold even a Windigo would have been impressed. Then they began to direct the storm down towards the ground, towards their target.

"Forgive me darlings, but what exactly is this supposed to accomplish?" Rarity asked.

"I'm wondering the same thing." Claire said.

Toby explained "Do you own any of those glassware dishes that have a warning on the bottom to not take them straight from the freezer to the oven or vice versa?"

"Yeah, My mom's got tons of that stuff." Claire said.

"What happens if you ignore that warning and do it anyway?"

Rarity said "Well it will shatt.... Ohhhh.... Oh my."

Below, the driving storm slammed into Gungana with all it's strength. Ice crystal began to form on the exposed stone in seconds, and small pieces started splintering away. "What!? What is this!? What is-" She didn't have time to finish before it happened. From one moment to the next, the stone body shattered into a million pieces from the thermal shock. Gungana, Morgana, was no more.

XXXXX

Cloudsdale, one hour later. Even with all the damage, the ponies of the city were celebrating victory. Quiet memorials became parties when Spitfire returned, revealing that while nearly all of the Wonderbolts were going to be in the hospital for days or weeks, none of them had died. And then cheerful parties became joyful riots when Celestia and Luna arrived. While Twilight joined her mentor and Dash hung close to Spitfire, everyone else kept a respectful distance and talked through the day's events.

"So, I hear that some of the royal guards have already gone through the remains." Fluttershy said. "They found no sign of the Decimar Sword."

"Not surprisin'. I expect it's melted down in the lava." Applejack replied.

Rarity said "But is it? Enchanted articles don't usually go away that easily darling."

Morgan agreed. "She's right. It's buried down there somewhere, intact."

"Intact, sure, but who's gonna get to it in millions of tons of boiling molten lava?" Jim asked.

"I dunno... I'm startin' t' learn not t' put anything past this enemy." Applejack said.

"Can't argue with that." Claire agreed.

"What about you Morgan?" Pinkie Pie asked. "You're coming to Unity right?"

Morgan shook her head. "I am uncertain that is wise. As I already explained to Fluttershy, even with Gandalf and Starswirl present I fear Master Merlin's reaction. I have no way to predict how he will respond to seeing me."

"Well, you could always just ask me." A familiar voice spoke. Everyone turned to see Merlin approaching, walking across the clouds as if it were something he did every day. "I saw child. I saw everything. And I am most vexed that I did not realize sooner that it wasn't you."

"Then... You can forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive." Merlin answered. "And I would welcome you back as my apprentice once more."

"Wow. Total O.O.C. moment for Mister Grumpy." Pinkie whispered to the others behind a hoof.

Merlin looked right at her, an eyebrow raised. "You do know I can hear you, yes?"

"Do y'all know 'grumpy' is being nice about it?" Applejack countered. Everyone laughed.

Merlin simply stared, eyebrow still raised, for several seconds. "Quite." He finally said. "Well, I think I shall take my leave. Come along Morgan, I've been examining a fascinating puzzle with Starswirl and Gandalf and I would very much like to have your insights." Morgan nodded and they vanished from sight, though she waved goodbye as they went.

"So, um, what should we do now?" Fluttershy asked.

"Tomorrow, we start preparing for the third Keystone." Jim said. "But for today-"

He was interrupted as Pinkie jumped high into the air, throwing confetti about. "-Today, we Party!!!"

Comments

[badninja]

So I wonder just what they are thinking about with why there are so many similarities between universes? Plus I think the answer for the major question posed will lie in Twilight in the end.