Ghosts 7: Spookhard
“Holy crow! You weren’t kidding!” Fleetfoot zipped back before anypony else. So wide was the disc of ice that formed that it reached even their line!
The pegasi thought they were safe because they had gotten out from underneath it before it had fallen two feet. They weren’t ready for the impact!
Spitfire had seen this exact attack before. She’d known something like this was coming, but memories of the day she first encountered this monster came flooding back. The absolute crushing defeat!
Her body tensed. She couldn’t move!
“Spitfire!” Fleetfoot grabbed her by the collar. “Do you need me to take over?”
Spitfire snapped out of it. The attack would touch down momentarily!
“I’m fine! Everypony fallback! I can…”
One plus was that Spitfire had time to think about what she would do if ever she witnessed one of its attacks again. Maybe she could at least mitigate it this time. She enveloped her body in flames.
All of them followed her order to retreat, all of them but Fleetfoot who hung back just a few meters. Spitfire didn’t have time to yell at her. She landed a good hundred yards from the edge of the gorge. Here, she welled up all of her strength, the fire blazing strongly enough to force Fleetfoot back at last.
The sheet of ice had to be three stories tall at the least and stretched on and on far out of sight. The two pegasi watched it drop, watched the thick sheet pass before them.
The ice hit the ground. It might as well have been a massive bomb going off! Not only did it crack the dry earth and collapse entire sections of the gorge, but the shockwave uprooted the few scraggly trees in this barren plain.
Spitfire could see the shockwave coming at her, gathering debris into an ever-widening wall.
Not the first one!
Spitfire knew she could survive the airburst! It would be enough to send a normal pegasus flying off for over a mile before regaining control if a rock didn’t smash their head in. But ponies like Spitfire or especially Fleetfoot could hold their ground.
The blast was frontloaded, sending them spiraling for a moment, but only a moment. That would leave a mark, but Spitfire survived it. It was a bit more of a struggle this time, but Spitfire winced and bared the blow of the rocks and sand blasting into her.
It was before the wind died down, just when Spitfire could begin to see anything but absolute blackness, that she landed. She could see the blue light of the enchanted ice growing stronger in the dark.
Not much time left!
She erected a wall of fire along the edge of the gorge.
The ice burst, sending a wave of cold even further out in all directions. Massive spikes erupted as it traveled, tearing anything it touched to shreds.
In mere seconds, it had reached Spitfire’s location. She yelled and blasted the fires as hot as they would go! The ice hit her even harder than the blast did and for a moment she thought it impossible to hold out!
But giving up would mean certain death at this point. Even if it was impossible, she’d have to at least try, at least give the others an extra second to get away. Despite all the flames, Spitfire felt herself cooling off! One spear of ice ripped straight through her wall, nearly impaling her before bursting into steam.
She bit down too tightly on her tongue and tried pushing forward just a little more. Just one more second.
It stopped!
Spitfire’s flames went hurtling forward, melting huge swaths of ice into steam as the pegasus herself lurched forward, collapsing on her stomach, coughing and wheezing.
Just this one area, just this strip, took all of her effort to protect.
“Hot dang!” Fleetfoot landed next to her. “You stopped that huge attack! I didn’t know you still had it in you.”
She gave Spitfire the lightest of jabs, which felt enough to knock her out right now. Still, Spitfire struggled to regain her composure. They had seconds at best.
“We don’t have a lot of time before it attacks again.” Spitfire straightened up. “This wasn’t anything close to a win! We’ll have to focus most of our efforts on stopping any collateral damage.”
Spitfire looked to her right. She only stopped it on one side. The others… looking down the gorge, Spitfire couldn’t see the tumult of icicles that should have been there. Had somepony else blocked that section too?
Spitfire flew up and looked off to where Lightning Dust had flown off to, already assuming the worse. Where they were standing had taken a direct hit.
But what Spitfire saw left her stunned.
“What?”
Pinkie charged forward.
Aria looked up at the incoming ice! It was already too late! That would kill them all!
“We have to get out of here!” Aria shouted at Pinkie. “Sonata! Underground!”
That was their only hope to survive. Pinkie wouldn’t make it. Then there’d be no way to free Sonata! Aria’s mind blazed trying to figure out some way to save Pinkie as the ice came down.
“Pinkie! Try to block it! Forget the attack!” Aria moved to her side, ready to support whatever attempt Pinkie made to survive.
“I trust Twilight!”
Pinkie lifted the spirit bomb overhead and jumped forward at Sonata, deeper into the field of incoming ice with no fear at all! Sonata was so taken off guard by the bold charge she merely fell back onto her haunches.
Pinkie came down toward Sonata! The chains began to fly outward, away from Pinkie’s attack as she approached. It was just how Aria’s chains reacted.
The ice was less than fifty feet overhead. If Twilight didn’t do something soon, it’d hit right after Pinkie did.
The light of the enchanted ice turned from blue to red! Not all of it, but a critical wedge overhead melted away. Now only a massive cloud of steam rose above Pinkie Pie. She was in the clear!
Something came up from underground just as she moved in to strike! Another ghost! Pinkie briefly felt its aura! Then she saw a blue light clashing against her own. Pinkie saw chains flying off in every direction but couldn’t tell who they broke off from.
Sonata and Fluttershy went tumbling off, but the new challenger remained firmly in place, right in front of Sonata.
This ghost wasn’t like the others. While they had a few chains here and there, this one wore them like a second skin. Two layers of chains wrapped around her so completely that only a single, yellow eye could be seen from one side.
Sonata stumbled about behind this new ghost. Half the banshee’s chains were gone. She was no longer tethered to her doll, now lying lifelessly on the ground. But she likely wasn’t free. This other ghost, meanwhile, had several blown off. But not enough for even a tiny bit of her to be exposed to the air.
The heavily chained ghost’s eye shifted from yellow to blue. The blue light floated off to one side as though it were wrapped in a barely visible fire.
“It’s blue!” Super-chains looked down at Pinkie with one eye. “I get it now. That’s why you’re able to break through the chains. You’re the same as me. Sort of.”
“The same how?” Pinkie shifted her eyes to Sonata, then back at the new pony. She could feel this ghost was different from most she encountered. Her aura. It felt similar to Pinkie’s own, only much stronger being a ghost. It was similar enough that Pinkie wondered if she had a long-lost third sibling besides Inky and Blinky. Clyde?
Something about it was strange. It made her chains rattle near constantly as though she were rapidly vibrating inside. Those around Sonata Dusk were repelled by them like a reverse magnet.
“Oh, fuck. It’s her!” Aria stood up, recovering from the exchange. “Pinkie, that pony is extremely dangerous. Don’t attack her unless you’re sure it will free her. She gets stronger when you–”
The chained ghost held up a foreleg. A blue pulse not unlike Pinkie’s spirit bomb rippled out, throwing Aria clear out of her doll. Ghost Aria slammed hard into a wall of enchanted ice that sprang up out of nowhere, then cracked into pieces.
Pinkie noticed two links break off as that ghost used the attack. That settled it! Pinkie and her did have the same type of spiritual energy!
“Yeesh, Aria! Don’t you ever get tired of losing to me?” Chains asked.
Aria staggered, recovering from the blow.
“Heh! You’re right. I can’t possibly beat you, can I?” Aria smirked and whipped her lip. She stood with confidence, as though this ghost had just fallen for some trap. “It’d be pretty hopeless for me to try, huh?
Chains tilted her head. That blue fire snuffed out entirely. Her eye became yellow again.
“Ah, boo! That’s not fair!”
“Pinkie,” said Aria. “Only focus on Sonata. If anypony too strong tries to attack this one, it will only make things worse. I’ll try to stall her out.”
“If she’s that strong, shouldn’t I try to free her too?” Pinkie asked.
“Trust me!” Aria called out to her. “Make it perfectly clear you aren’t going to help me.”
“Alright.” Pinkie nodded, then turned to the most chained-up ghost. “But I will save you too!”
Her eye turned from yellow to blue.
“At an undefined point in the future!” Pinkie quickly added. “Certainly not right now!”
Then it turned yellow again.
“Alright Sonata! Prepare to think for yourself!” Pinkie formed another spirit bomb.
“I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna!” Sonata whined, pushing herself while remaining seated.
Pinkie jumped forward, high into the air. Once again, Sonata’s chains rattled. Pinkie’s psychic perception warned her just before it happened, but suddenly a sharp spike in gravity pulled her down to the ground.
She landed hard but managed to stay on her feet having seen it coming. Still, some kind of magic lingered, intensifying gravity to the point Pinkie needed telekinetic assistance just to stand.
She turned her neck to see a large chunk of ice, one with a rune carved into it. Creating ice with magic runes in them? That was something only the most skilled ghosts could do! Either way, this was the source of the magic.
Pinkie bucked the ice hard enough to crack it and end the gravity spell. Then she rolled to the side just as a bolt of lightning came down from the sky. She turned back to chains just as the steam began turning into rain.
Suddenly, they were all in a torrential downpour.
“Hey, hey! You can’t just run away.” The dangerous ghost held a hoof out at Pinkie. “Except for you, Sonata. Better get out of here.”
Sonata was already running away screaming. Fluttershy looked from her to Pinkie, then rushed off after Sonata. It seemed this ghost was more interested in Pinkie than either of them.
Aria jumped at her from behind, an axe head made of ice encasing her foreleg.
But that ghost, a lightning elemental if Pinkie remembered her training, held her forelegs out wide and simply… dissolved into static electricity, leaving Aria to swipe at the air.
Pinkie had never seen that technique before.
Good news, Pinkie had enough psychic perception to know where the ghost would reappear. Bad news, she was about to reappear right on top of Pinkie!
Pinkie twirled in what felt like the safest direction, but still felt a surge of electricity running through her as the lightning elemental reemerged, sending her down into the water. She tried turning into a bolt of lightning to strike, but this Pinkie managed to roll the out of the way of.
The lightning elemental blasted back and forth, letting lightning bolts carry her off in every direction. Each time she passed Pinkie; she planted another ice rune nearby. Pinkie diligently crushed each one before the effect could go off but was already having trouble keeping up.
Despite being literally lightning-fast, Pinkie could easily predict where the lightning elemental would land next. But she couldn’t attack!
“Aria, it’s getting a little hard not to fight her.”
Pinkie charged her psychic energy. In almost perfect tandem with it, the blue in the ghost’s eyes came back. She even tested it out a little, raising and lowering it at will.
As it rose once again, a little bit too much, the lightning elemental held out her hoof and fired a shot of blue energy at Pinkie, a sphere not unlike the spirit bomb. Pinkie had to brace herself and dig her hooves in, but the psychic barrier held.
A few more chains fell off around her head from using that attack. A small bit of green hair, the faintest sliver of a mane, fluttered through the gaps…
Aria came in from behind, hitting the ghost successfully this time and tackling her to the ground.
Pinkie couldn’t wait any longer to run off after Sonata.
“Good luck, Aria!”
On such short notice, Twilight had only managed to obliterate about a 90-degree slice of the summoned disc of ice, more than enough to protect those on her side. Leaving the rest may have even worked out in her favor, potentially forcing back enemies unseen.
Twilight stood with a dispersing but thick cloud of steam just behind and above her. The armor stood before a field of ice, crisscrossed with ice blades. Neither had moved from their spot. The train station still stood.
The armor lingered a moment as if letting Twilight take in the depth of the destruction it had wrought.
Then it lifted its hoof.
A second wall of ice appeared overhead, just as big, just as threatening. It’d made its point. It could unleash that much devastation as many times as it wanted in quick succession.
Still…
Using the same attack twice in a row? Was this god really so amateurish?
Twilight drew from one of the wells of energy she established next to her. A swirling white light coalesced into a spiraling nexus. Twilight launched this into the air. It collided with the ice before it even had a chance to start falling this time. Not just a wedge, but the whole of it became steam. A massive cloud hung over the battlefield now.
The armor had no ability to express a reaction.
If it had, it would have already been too soon. With a second one of her wells, in the same motion she sent off her swirling light, Twilight pulled forth a chain of red lightning. It zipped straight under the armor, then exploded upwards.
Red light and electricity poured out of every gap as the armor tried to maintain its footing. It jerked about in place as the ice around it melted and boiled into steam, even the ground below it began to turn molten. The attack was too much for it to hold ground. The lighting shot upward, throwing the armor into the air.
Twilight followed, throwing herself into the air with a torrent of fire. She swung around, throwing a sphere of hyper-concentrated wind at it. The ball slammed into one of the gaps in the armor. Electrified, burning soot came pouring out of the armor in massive waves, each enough to bury ten ponies.
But it wasn’t nearly enough. Twilight had to hit it harder! And for that?
Twilight opened a portal just above her enemy, one leading much further into the sky. Twilight followed suit, her whole body glowing with magic as she summoned the red and black orb of a hyper-destruction sphere. It wouldn’t be safe to use that on the ground, but here it was just the two of them.
Twilight looked down briefly to confirm she’d climbed high up enough. Below she could see nothing more than an endless sea of mist over the battlefield, but even the whole of that appeared small at this altitude.
The orb slammed into the armor from below. The resulting explosion of black and red would have been enough to obliterate all of Ponyville.
It threw Twilight back hurtling toward the ground, but she used a series of short-range portals to send herself higher up instead, going over even the armor now hurtling upwards with a trail of black smoke bellowing out behind it. Twilight wouldn’t be able to breathe if they went any higher than this.
Eight seconds.
That was Twilight’s guess for how long it needed to be able to recharge its attack. But she was a little too late. It snapped back into position just before Twilight would have been able to fire off an all-out plasma attack as planned.
The enemy stopped its ragdoll impression and snapped back into perfect form. All the bleeding stopped right then. Twilight readied for another attack.
With the grace of a drunk pony, it swung itself forward to cast the spell. Twilight took note of the moon. It glowed ever slightly brighter. Blackness speckled with blue dots reminiscent of a night sky surrounded the armor… then Twilight.
Gravity! It was trying to crush Twilight! It was like the entire weight of the moon was gripping Twilight from every direction. No, it couldn’t be that extreme, could it? She grit her teeth, pressing back against the weight with all her telekinetic strength. Giving in for one second would leave her crushed down to the size of a grain of sand!
The weight seemed to keep coming and coming.
She had no choice! Twilight surrounded herself with a sphere of plasma, blasting back the magic. She had to strain herself, but the darkness of gravity was blown away.
She’d intended instead to use her plasma to attack the armor up here. Only so far away could Twilight use such an attack at full power. But now she’d have to wait. Plasma magic was her strongest magic, but she couldn’t fire it off rapidly.
Twilight looked up to see the armor already preparing another one of its massive attacks. It’d already been another eight seconds!
This time black and red threads intertwined above it. This was magic similar to the hyper destruction sphere, only this one formed into something like a drill that it sent hurtling down at Twilight.
Bad choice!
Between attacks, it lost all of its grace. Twilight created a portal and slammed the armor through, making it reappear right in front of its own attack. She teleported just underneath her adversary and launched her own drill-like attack up from beneath, one consisting of yellow and white blasts of electricity.
Twilight watched her foe get ground down by light and darkness on both ends until the two beams collided too strongly and exploded in a spectacular nova. Twilight moved some distance away but still, the explosion made it hard to keep steady.
She wasn’t going to hold back this time. Twilight had an explosion amplification spell, one that made it so the force of an explosion would carry on for several seconds instead of being a single shockwave. It was a bit too deadly and she’d yet to use that on an actual opponent.
She cast that spell now. The explosion enveloped a massive area like a vibrating, unstable star until that too exploded. It still wasn’t at the level of a full-out plasma assault, but Twilight couldn’t imagine even Starswirl surviving that.
It seemed like Twilight’s attack had been successful. But it all seemed too easy. How had something capable of such destruction not thought ahead enough to foresee Twilight doing this? She just used the portals seconds ago!
As the light faded, Twilight saw her enemy still largely unscathed. Twilight had only managed to dig down a little way. Her best guess was… not even ten percent.
“Or maybe it’s so strong it doesn’t care!” Twilight grit her teeth. Was it trying to send a message? Or was it just unskilled?
This would take a while. Both had plenty of strength left to spare.
Her enemy cast another spell. Once again, a plate of ice appeared high up. Twilight exploded that one into steam but knew that couldn’t be the end of it. She spun around once in the air and saw, far below, another blue spot!
The armor had created two plates this time! A second was already way back down on the ground! Twilight didn’t dare leave the armor up here by itself, but she needed to get back down there, so…
Twilight teleported up to the armor and struck it hard with a blast of fire. She cycled through a dozen attacks, switching elements each time. Any one of these attacks would be enough to vaporize a normal pony. Like this, she gained more and more speed as she accelerated both of them through a short series of portals.
The armor twisted and contorted at odd angles. Piles and piles of soot flew out from it with every blow. Twilight could tell she’d underestimated how much of that she’d need to dig through to get to the core. But she was digging.
They reached the ground in seconds. Twilight smashed straight through that massive plate before boiling that off into steam as well.
The armor slammed into the ground, a crater twenty feet deep opening up for the armor.
Twilight landed at the edge of the crater a moment later. The steam was already falling back down as rain and it would be for a long time now. She looked down at the armor, a black tar-like substance oozed out of its joints like blood.
It slowly stood back up.
Aria got in a couple of good blows, then suddenly her opponent’s telekinesis flared up and threw Aria aside.
Aria looked in the direction her sister had fled, then back to her nemesis, the green mane poking out from the chains hardly necessary for identifying her.
Lemon Zest!
This was one of the Shadowbolts, a ‘fraid’ of ghosts as they were called, inexplicably their strongest member despite being something of an idiot. Aria had too much history with the Shadowbolts, but none of that mattered now.
She had to stall out Zest.
“Are you trying to fight me?” Zest asked. “You’ve literally never won a fight against me, Aria.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Aria. “Besides, I have to try. I can’t just leave Sonata.”
“I think the word ‘try’ is being too generous.” Zest rolled her neck.
Aria covered her foreleg in a spike of ice and thrust forward.
Zest tapped the ground, covering a wide swath with a layer of thick, enchanted ice. Unlike normal ice, ice made by ghosts had an unworldly blue glow. It was enchanted and could hit other ghosts.
Barriers like this were common in ghost-to-ghost combat. They gave you something to slam your otherwise incorporeal opponent against, cut off routes of escape.
Aria was thrown to one side. Zest flew past her in a bolt of lightning to slam into her back from behind, throwing her to the other side. Aria jerked forward into the oncoming barrage of icicles. These stabbed into her and forced her back to a waiting Zest once again.
She had just enough time to see Zest rise above her before spiking her down toward the ground.
Aria slammed down hard into the wall of ice that covered the ground. Normally, she’d fly through the ground, but enchanted ice was one of the few objects a ghost could impact.
Zest was on her again in a literal flash, bringing down her hoof like a thundering hammer. One, two, three intense blows landed, and that huge sheet of ice shattered. Aria was flung underground but not even that slowed Zest’s pursuit.
Below the surface, Zest grabbed Aria by the collar and threw her up into the air, back above ground. A left hook sent Aria reeling.
And at last, she was given a moment to regain her composure.
Aria had already taken so much damage just from that! Her form was littered with holes, blue threads dancing around the edges. Normally, these threads would slowly repair your form until you were whole again. But after a critical threshold, a ghost would instead ‘unravel’ and die.
Aria knew she wasn’t there yet but fighting with Zest much longer would change that.
Still, she steadied herself and produced another blade of ice.
“Seriously?” Zest asked. “What do you think you’re going to do? You once told me yourself this is hopeless. You can’t even beat me and yet you really think you can go up against–”
“Fucking idiot! You realize I was being forced to say that!” Aria spat at her. “You’re being forced to say this! All of it is bullshit! I know it. You know it, so shut up!”
“Well, you’re not wrong.” Zest folded her forelegs and closed her eyes. “But you know I can’t exactly not kill you either. And I may have cheated to become a pro ghost but this still counts as–”
This was it! Zest’s greatest weakness was that she was a total idiot who never shut her annoying mouth.
Aria created a small pillar of ice in front of herself and exploded it into a shotgun of smaller ice pellets. Zest opened her eye just in time to see the pellets expand into spears that slammed into her!
Not letting it end there, Aria exploded the ice spears that missed into pellets the same way, then expanded those into more spears. Zest found herself trapped in a sudden tumult of exploding ice, unable to escape as it began tearing her to shreds. Zest unraveled just a little bit! Aria was putting her on the ropes.
Zest’s eye turned blue! Then, the faint translucent flame reappeared.
This was the real problem. The second Aria got the upper hand, this bitch would just power up to match it.
Zest’s lightning became blue. A sphere of it surrounded her, dissolving the hail just like that.
She held a foreleg out to one side, letting all the electricity coalesce around that single spot, her right hoof until it was a glowing ball of blue. The blue repelled the chains covering her, pushing them away like fur in a heavy breeze. One or two links got blown off just from that.
Zest pointed that hoof at Aria. The blast was too fast to dodge and hurt far more than merely being struck by lightning would. The lightning was empowered, its magic shaking Aria’s form to its core.
Aria let out a gag as she reeled backward, her vision blurring.
The light around Zest’s hoof grew brighter again. And then…
From the other side of the gorge, Dash watched the fight between Aria and this mysterious ghost. Things were too intense over there to just go rushing in.
Dash bit her lip. Aria was getting clobbered.
Should she go out there?
Dash looked down at her boot, then back to Aria fighting that lightning ghost. No way Dash could help Twilight against that thing. But was there anything she could do against this ghost?
Dash felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Want me to take this one?” Dust asked with an overly smug grin.
Why was she even asking permission? Dash cringed a little without answering.
“Hey, I’m a master of lightning.” Lightning Dust covered her body with blue electricity. “You sure you don’t want my help? Somepony like that is a bad matchup against me.”
Dash looked back toward Aria. Dust had a point. It seemed that ghost was all electricity all the time. Sending Dust in would be the smart thing to do, wouldn’t it?
And yet it felt wrong. Not just to rely on an obvious sociopath, but to keep hiding behind other ponies like this. Shouldn’t Dash go in herself? Especially now with her new claw blade?
A particularly brutal blast of blue lightning left Aria borderline comatose. And the lightning elemental wound up for an even more serious blow.
Dash couldn’t sit by and think any longer! That wasn’t her style anyway!
“We only go after that lightning elemental!” Dash called to Lightning Dust and charged forward. “Come on!”
Dust let out a whoop and raced far ahead of Dash, reaching the target in a fraction of a second.
The ghost turned to Lightning Dust, blasting her with another shot of electricity that Dust made no attempt to dodge.
Lightning Dust jerked and vibrated her body all over as she glowed with electricity making various, slobbery noises, in imitation of a pony being electrocuted.
“Haha! Just kidding!” Lightning Dust snapped back to stand up straight. “Good luck hurting me with electricity.”
Dust gave Dash a brief look before charging in at the off-guard ghost. She flashed up to her enemy too fast to be seen and slammed hard into the chains, her punch sending out a spark of blue light.
Dust spun around in circles, throwing her weight into haymaker after haymaker, colliding with Zest in rapid succession, making the ghost spin rapidly in place. Dust’s motions would have been far too quick for Dash to follow normally but with the claw blades….
Dash noticed something was wrong before Dust did. That ghost’s eyes sharpened!
As she spun back upright, she held up her forehoof and created a small barrier of ice, blocking Dust’s punch effortlessly. Dust’s eyes widened. The ghost swung forward with a spear of ice shot right at Dust’s head.
The electricity took over Dust’s body, causing her to backbend, then roll out of the way, allowing the spear to travel over top of her. Yet that ice glowed blue and burst hard. Even with her automatic dodging magic, Dust was thrown back by the sudden attack.
And the ghost followed it up with the most vicious blast of lightning yet! A cone of blue electricity three ponies wide tore up the ground beneath it. Dust dug her hooves in to withstand it. She managed, but still got thrown back by the sudden burst of power.
That ghost’s eye was different now. It shone blue; the faint impression of flames was no longer faint. They were flames.
“You’re right!” Said the ghost. “Going up against somepony like you is really bad for me, huh?
“Holy!” Dust skipped backward a few steps before managing to come to a stop. Her face lit up brightly. “Hahahaha! Oooh! You were holding back on me, huh? Let’s do this! We can take her, Dash!”
Dust and the ghost charged at each other. Dash got ready to help, but Aria flew out in front of her.
“Wait!” Aria stopped her. “That ghost…”
“You know her?” Dash asked.
“Her name is Lemon Zest,” said Aria. “Long story short the more dire her situation becomes the stronger she gets. Not exactly easy to fight somepony like that, huh? We can’t put too much pressure on her. She can get a lot stronger than this. And don’t even think about bringing your witch friend over here.”
“Dammit!” Dash stepped forward and shouted up at Lightning Dust. “Dust! Dust take evasive action! Attacking her is making it worse!”
Of course, she didn’t listen! The two of them were clashing with ever-greater blasts of ice and lightning.
No choice.
Dash flew up after Lightning Dust. Those two were just so much faster than Dash! In this rain, keeping up was so hard. Just being up here with all this electricity bounding around would have been too dangerous for her just yesterday.
She could at least keep up and noticed that links flew off Lemon Zest each time she used that blue lightning. For a moment, Dash wondered if it would be best to try and stall her until all the chains came off. But that was taking too long.
There had to be some spell to help, Dash had so many now.
Just rely on her new instincts! Seemed like a good idea. So Dash looked to Dust and did the first spell that came to mind, something like an easier version of teleportation.
Dash’s body dissolved into a fog of shadows. She rematerialized on a shadow cast by Dust and a flash of lightning against the heavy clouds and just like that was on top of her. Dash latched onto Dust’s back, spreading her wings out to disperse the electricity that constantly surrounded her.
“Hey! I’m on your side!” Dust did a barrel roll trying to throw Dash off.
“I’m telling you!” Dash bit her ear. “Your attacks are only going to make her stronger!”
“Huh?” Dust slowed down. “Like no electricity or…?”
“Watch her eye, you idiot!”
She looked over at Zest. The blue flames were already starting to die down a little.
“Yeah, yeah! Before you do that,” said Zest.
Zest held her forelegs out wide, letting her blue electricity ripple out across the heavy downpour. It came out in ever more brilliant blue. Lightning bounced around the rain until it cascaded across the sky, lighting up the heavy cloud overhead.
She charged the entire cloud!
Lightning ripped across the entire battlefield now, battering the already blasted ground. It didn’t come without cost, however. A huge number of chains had been blown off Zest’s right foreleg, enough for Dash to see her pink fur.
“Wait.” Dash looked up at ‘Zest’. Even though she could barely see any of her… Just the colors. The green hair and pink fur brought a not too distant memory to mind. “I think I’ve seen her before.”
Now Twilight was in a Thunderstorm. Emphasis on thunder. She slowly circled the armor, which had been unsettlingly still the past couple of minutes. The area had started to flood on top of that. Only a thin layer of water, mostly pouring into the crater Twilight had just made, but she did need to focus on not getting electrocuted now.
“This weather is getting a little too dramatic, isn’t it?” Twilight asked her. It.
She hadn’t expected any kind of response, but she got one. A little. It seemed to hack, wretch, then puke out a stream of black tar.
It made a gurgling sound, as though trying to speak through the armor. Finally, a word.
“Incomplete.”
Twilight’s ears swiveled to it. This was the first word she’d heard uttered by this creature. Its voice was so airy, coming on the wind. But it said no more than that.
“You or me?” Twilight took a wary step back.
“I worried… I felt a fraction of your other half where… yes… you were speaking to… it but no more. And that was but a fragment. And you denied even that. I feel its anger… hatred that you rejected its advice… You turned your back on it… after so long… You are incomplete.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. She had no idea what it was talking about.
“Who are you?” Twilight asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Yes. You are the strongest disciple of Gold–” The helmet shuttered and shook. Twilight was reminded of the seizure Minuette had and briefly thought something similar was going on here. But it recovered. “Of… her… you… I despise everything about her. About my enemy. I will destroy you before you can become… complete.”
It began to walk forward, out of the crater.
“I am her enemy. I am Nightmare Moon.”
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I am unbelievably hyped by this chapter, there is SO MUCH happening right now
Awesome! Also, Element of Magic redemption arc incoming? We know it's still somewhere in Twilight's forbidden attic
I think everyone knew there'd be no happy ending for the shadowbolts but having chained Zest here is an oof.
To answer Twilight's question from many, many chapters ago: this is what Starswirl was preparing you for.
Zest must have a power cap, unless she is being actively fed from her Mastre, as so many chains would be proken, by past a certain point, teh weakening will be annoying enoughto her Mastre that they just do a quick refresh at the least?
How many feathers are being burnt up transfering their power to Nightmare as theyre lost to Twilights attacks?
Oh. My. Gosh.
We’re in season 1!?
11571091
Frankly, it's Sugarcoat I'm really worried for.
Now what are you talking abou....... Smarty Pants, did Twilight hid her Element in Smarty Pants?
I wonder where rainbow remembers zest from! This is getting really exiting!
Chained Zest makes me sad... But maybe there is a chance she still gets a happy ending?
Twilight is facing down the enemy she spent centuries preparing for. Let's see if she is ready!
Well this is not gonna end well for the world
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Yeah, but it seems like she's REALLY hard to control, considering the fact that she's got so many chains and the fact that the stronger her attacks get, the more the chains break. I assume that she'll break free if things go on for too long.
Thrown back?
... electrocuted?
I kinda can see analogy with Darklord's coin here
So they win by bullshitting how amazing and great it would be for her to loose?
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Since it was "not too distant memory", that pink unicorn with green mane that Element of Laughter had shown Dash a few chapters ago was probably Zest. (And it mentioned that it still owes Zest a wish)
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I believe she saw Zest back when she was talking to the Element of Laughter. She was the unicorn that mentioned that one of her wishes was on backlog, if I recall correctly.
To much spoilers and cliffhangers. Too much!
My favorite Zest what happened to you? 😭
Nice
So many cliffhanger I can't
Having re-caught up on the fanfic, I must say I absolutely love everything about it. The world-building is interesting and consistent. The characters act in understandable ways and their abilities, intelligence, and philosophy differ noticeably, informing their actions. They are allowed to make mistakes that fit their personality, and they are allowed to show off their strength.
And those strengths differ so widely; every major player is strong enough to be a credible threat but in their own way. It is just fun to see them battle, and nothing feels like it comes out of the blue. Strength is set up in advance, and we can understand the stakes of each battle, which have been escalating in a realistic and satisfying fashion.
What I especially like about the stakes is how, because of Twilights overwhelming strength, the stakes rarely are raw power, in a pure 1 on 1 the foes that can actually challenge Twilight are exceedingly few in number, yet there are always other stakes, many of which can’t be solved with raw power… or actively reduce the amount of power Twilight is able to use.
Nightmare Moon is probably the first enemy where the raw power is a serious question because I am not sure Twilight can win this fight 1 on 1. But even here there are other stakes to keep track of.
This is a masterfully woven story, with interesting characters who make fitting decisions, and I will be looking forward to the next chapter. And hope that my favorite paranoid pegasus Nailbat will get a bit more time to be seen, now that his plans to judge Twilight have gone into motion.
Feels wrong to have Dash admit that someone is faster than her.
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Season one? My man, I gave up on figuring that out almost immediately. Cannon has been so completely abolished that the only similarity between this and it are character names. Twilight is what, a few centuries old now? If anything this is season 276-B.
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I actually disagree with this, in a way. Characters retain very specific personality traits, like Dash's absolute determination to be exceptional (even if she can't manage it here) or Twilight's relentless study habits, social awkwardness, and love of books. They're just modified for the setting in what I think are interesting ways.
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Revisiting this thought, Zest in Laughter's throne room thanks Dash for "helping out" with her wish. I suspect this was a "thank you in advance" for helping free her. It's also worth mentioning that Zest being here AND her status as a Bearer of Laughter was foreshadowed by the fragment of Laughter hanging out near Crater Cemetery, seeing as it's attached to Zest
What have they done, what have they done to our girl
That was a good chapter goodluck with the next one.
One thing that I thought a lot about is how the Darklords coin will impact the upcoming battle. He warned Rainbow that she should stay with her friends and not be alone with the new bearer of the coin. Also, important information, Rainbow won’t get hit as hard as Trixie in the worst-case scenario, and what will happen to her will be something that she would have considered immensely unlucky when she held the coin, not now. At least, that is what I assume from the Darklord's phrasing.
So she is, in the worst-case scenario, going to be hit by something equivalent to shaking but not destroying her entire worldview. (milder than what Trixie suffered, but still not good). And currently, Rainbow is without her friends and near the ghost with the coin.
Now what would have Dash pre-Trixie fight, considered to be the worst thing to happen to her? I can think of two things. First, losing her whatever status she would gain through beating Trixie, and second, their plan goes wrong in some massive way.
For both, there has been set up. If Rainbow were to lose the status she had gained (most likely by being outed as not as strong as people expected), she would have to confront the fact that strength is not what she brings to the table in their group and find something healthier to build her self-worth on.
The other is that something goes wrong with their plan to improve the lot of all kinds of outlaws from the inside into a fairer system. There is a lot here that could go wrong. Fluttershy is a potential way, be it through a hostile take-over or ill-time coin wish, and a ghost friend of dashes injuring or killing someone would certainly dampen their plans.
Twilight being revealed is another point of failure and one that has been well set up. In fact, considering Spitfire and her Pegasi are both looking into Witch Twilight and Rainbow being not as strong as she should, perhaps many things go wrong. Revealing she had been relying on THE witch would likely tank Rainbow's reputation in Equestria, or parts at least. Nailbat is predicting civil war, and we already had on-screen fighting about the procedure. So Equestria splitting between those willing to give Twilight a chance and those who wish all monsters dead…
Alternatively, Rainbow is captured by the Bloodstorm cartel, which would probably qualify as really bad luck as well, considering the coin delayed both Ghosts and Bloodstorm for ~30 min so that they will arrive to everyone already tired from fighting.
Of course all this is just me theorizing, and I am looking forward to what will actually happen.
Well, only now I've realized that it's her first name-drop in this story.
Huh
If Starlight and Nighty agree about that that must be true (and it's not specific for Starlight's element), since Starlight is on top of Nightie's enemies list. Is Nightie a product of similar process herself? (that would explain where siren's feather went) It almost looks like everyone important messed with immortality and/or alicorn powers at some point.
(The other big enemy is surprisingly Nailbat. He's totally somehow connected to Darklord, but, still, why?)
Also I tried to find something on "triumvirate protocol" and got... nothing
It isn't just remaining big shot witches (minus Sunset) dogpiling on Twiggles together? 
I really like the plot of this story. I read all the available chapters almost in one gulp. :)
But there is one detail that I do not really like. Almost all the main characters from the main six received some kind of improvement in their skills and abilities. But here Rainbow Dash, who in the original learned to overcome the sound barrier with her own strength and training, here she, on the contrary, was weakened to the state of an average statistical pegasus. Of course, as the story progresses, she gets stronger, but I don't feel like she achieves the power up on her own. She simply takes the powers given to her by Twilight. Even this artifact that increases skills and reaction looks like a cheat code.
Whole thing about Zest and Shadowbolts really saddened me. Hope they had something planned after all.
Oh, it's just Nightmare Moon.
Well this should be EASY! Just hit her with the Elements of the Infinity Gauntlet of Time!
Oh come on, I can't be the ONLY one to realize there are 6 EoH, 6 Infinity Gems, and 6 segments of the Key to Time!
You put them all together and Satan shows up! It's OBVIOUS!
Now I have to read the other story to get the zest situation and why everyone here is so sad about it
Doesn't anyone else think this story is going downhill?