Meanwhile...
“Just got a report, sir,” Riker told Picard. “Lumash suffered a massive surge in Void activity. It’s gone, sir.”
“Hume?”
“Still stable, but we don’t think it will be for much longer.”
Picard frowned. “They need to hurry. There won’t be any worlds left to save, soon.”
They both looked up at the main screen, watching the battle unfold. Currently the fleet was engaged with an army of strangely angelic beings glistening with light and ominous wings. They cut through shields like they were nothing and brought down both divine light and corrupt darkness on the ships of the fleet. The most effective weapons against them were Flipside’s Heart Cannons, of course, but the Comet Observatory and some of the Ninth World ships were proving to have effective methods for taking them out, in addition to Diqiu’s spirits.
Picard still found it a little ridiculous that they were shooting phasers and torpedos at what were essentially minor deities. It was almost as though Gaia had a theme baked into it of powerful, yet defeatable, entities. He wondered if he would have preferred it if the Q were like this. Would it have given an illusion of power?
“Just got a report from Worf,” Riker said, tearing Picard from his observations of the battle. “The internal forces of the Castle are regrouping closer to the center, trying to break down the blockades the Resistance has set up. They won’t be able to hold them off for long—we need to get some of our ground troops in there.”
“A spearhead that far into enemy skies will be unbelievably dangerous,” Bon Bon said.
“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Picard said, standing up. “I’m about to give an order I have a feeling I’ll regret later, but I don’t have time to reconsider. Hail the Borg.”
“We are Borg,” the hive-mind replied. “Speak.”
Picard pressed a button. “I need you to assimilate their strongest soldier.” On screen appeared the four-legged robot-machine-animal with glowing blue-yellow discs all around it. “Enemy chatter calls it the Ultima Weapon. Take it over and use it to provide cover for a spearhead operation.”
“Resistance is futile.” Picard wasn’t sure if that was an agreement until the Borg cubes all broke off from their previous engagements and essentially rammed into the monstrous Ultima Weapon.
“Beam back the primary strike teams,” Picard ordered the Fleet. “All carriers: form into a spearhead around the Enterprise, beta formation — if you don’t know, information is being sent to your computers now. Assault ships, form around the rest of us and push forward—the inner castle needs backup now.”
The ships moved remarkably quickly, with the troop carriers forming a spike around the Enterprise, shortly followed by a shell of more aggressive assault ships. The multicolored and multinational force pointed straight for the center of Castle Bleck.
“Engage,” Picard ordered. “Protect the carriers at all costs!” Since the Enterprise was in the center of the formation, it did not get an opportunity to shoot as often as the others did, but it still got off a few phaser shots amidst the chaos. The ships pushed forward, cutting through angels and shattering crystal dragons. Flipside provided cover fire at first, but soon they were out of the floating city’s effective range, leaving them alone.
The angelic creatures—an inordinate number of which only had wings on one side of their body—started attacking from the sides. The assault ships fought valiantly, but their missiles were just that: missiles. Not divine rays of light from a blade they could barely look at without feeling their eyes burn. The formation was going to collapse.
Now would be a good time for…
“Resistance is futile.” The Ultima Weapon stopped firing on the Flipside Fleet and instead turned its cannon on the largest monstrosities attacking the spearhead, vaporizing them with the outrageous beam that had already destroyed over a hundred ships. The sky filled with angelic corpses.
However, the sudden twist was not to last—for whoever had controlled the Ultima Weapon before managed to order it to self-destruct despite the Borg’s assimilation. It disintegrated into nothing, taking a few of the Borg cubes with it. Once again, the Castle’s forces moved in, threatening to break up the spearhead once more.
“We got your back, Captain!” the Twilight Splinters called, teleporting their sphere to the front of the spearhead. Some kind of complex magic spell froze every attack that threatened the spearhead in an instant, triggering an inverse reaction that blew up the angelic beings’ faces. “Temporal inverted charge! ...That won’t work again, make use of it!”
“We will,” Picard said. “Carriers! Begin transporting to the castle roof in these locations…” He sent indicators to two areas. “Then return to the Fleet as fast as you can. Assault craft, keep the landing parties safe until they are inside and out of danger!” Picard turned to Bon Bon. “Send our teams down and get us out of here.”
The transporters activated, depositing hundreds of people down to the castle surface. All the carriers that had functioning warp drives jumped away—including the Enterprise. The rest either decided to remain and fight even with their damage or attempted to run at sublight speed. Neither of the two categories fared very well, in the end.
But the assault craft remained, and for the most part, their mission was a success. They took the hits for the ground troops, allowing them to seep into the Castle below to deal with the internal fight.
“Mission success,” Picard declared, sitting back down in his chair. “Resume normal combat operations, offer assistance to the Borg should they require it.”
“I’m never going to get used to that,” Riker said.
“Me neither, Number One. Me neither…” He pressed a few buttons. “Photon torpedo volley at the entity they call ‘Ozma.’ Fire.”
~~~
“All right, people!” Starlight said, bringing up a holographic map with her horn now that they were inside the castle. “Our goal is three flights down, where the Resistance needs backup! Team B has the other front—go go go!”
The soldiers that weren’t part of her team directly—largely composed of Romulans and Starfleet officers—ran off with her orders. Her team of Amy, Luigi, Cadence, and Discord stayed closer to her as she moved. They started in the back, but with two teleports from Starlight, they were suddenly in the front, sliding down flights of stairs and through dark hallways with alarming speed. Starlight and Cadence unleashed beams of magic energy so fast the few enemies in this part of the castle fell to the side easily.
They soon came to the choke point—arriving at a scene where the Resistance was pushing the Castle forces away, this segment consisting mostly of slime monsters and hypnotized ponies. There would be no beam-out medical treatment here, and it had already gotten bloody. The Resistance forces were wearing thin, despite having Cortez and Sonic both jumping around the enemy, the wall of ponies mixed with Klingons couldn’t hold much more pressure.
“Squeeze them!” Starlight ordered, turning her horn into a revolving gatling gun of magic bolts, hitting the enemy force from behind. Suddenly, the slimes and ponies realized they were stuck between a Resistance barricade and a fresh load of enemy combatants. The hypnotized ponies were unable to feel fear or panic in their state, so they continued whaling on the Resistance fortifications. The slimes, on the other hand, didn’t have the required cohesion. Some attacked one side, others rushed to the newcomers, while some others attempted to flee, sure the battle was lost.
This gave Luigi and Amy ample opportunity to squish slimes into nothing with their hammers. Discord, for his part, shot his gun at the disgusting blob creatures, exploding their gooey matter everywhere. But compared to Starlight and Cadence, the three of them were admittedly small fries. With immense bursts of magic, entire waves of slimes fell away—and this was before the Romulans started using their disruptors with the Starfleet phasers to boil away those who were getting past the attacks.
“Yar!” Cortez shouted. “The tide has shifted!”
“What took ya so long?” Sonic asked, bopping a pony on the head with a spin attack. “We were squeezin’ hard for a while there!”
“It’s not easy to get this close,” Cadence responded as she froze much of the floor over with her crystal. “Lost a lot of ships getting them here.”
“We’re thankful for the assist!” Pinkie shouted, jumping over her and smashing a slime with a squeaky hammer. “Yeah!” She lifted her hammer up with Amy and Luigi. “Hammer trio!”
“Hammers are the superior weapon of choice,” Amy agreed.
“Yep!” Luigi said.
Sonic blinked. “Amy!? What are you doi—”
Amy jumped past him and stopped a large earth pony from cracking his skull in with a hammer. “I’m part of the reinforcements, Sonic.” She gripped her hammer tightly. “This is war. Maybe stop treating it like so much of a joke.” She ran off into the fray, not giving him a second glance.
“Hmm…” Cortez said, sliding his head over to Sonic while using his other bones to slap enemies aside. “It seems your little Amy problem has taken care of itself. Heh.”
Sonic blinked. “I… huh.”
“She also has a point,” Pinkie said. “This is serious. I may be all smiles all the time but even I know this is terrible. But right now…” She jumped up and smacked the largest slime monster with her hammer. “Now, we have victory.” She lifted her hammer into the air and let out a cheer. “We held them off!”
“Yes!” Starlight shouted. “We got them! Hah!”
What few enemies were still around were either surrendering, running, or not of any significant danger. The Resistance’s wall had held.
“Now the heroes can move along a—”
A four-legged robot crashed through the ceiling, composed of a metallic hull with numerous blinking lights. The four legs affixed to a singular ovoid center, on which there was a yellow slit that might have been an eye. A single stick protruded from its top, like an antenna. Its name was proudly printed on its side: Omega.
“A challenger!” Cortez shouted with a devious laugh. “Take this, you little robotic bug!” He drove a blade right into it, snapping the poor sword in half. He opted to engulf it in blue fire instead, burning it to a crisp. It didn’t care.
The light on top of it flashed. >EXECUTE ENCIRCLE.EXE.
A golden circle appeared around Cortez—
—”What is this thing?” Starlight asked, trying to scan Omega, but only getting her magic reflected back at her.
“It hasn’t done anything,” Amy said, cocking her head to the side. “Is it… confused?”
“It’s an enemy, I’ll take care of it!” Luigi jumped forward and brought his hammer down on the machine.
>ENCIRCLE.EXE. A circle surrounded Luigi—
—”It doesn’t look confused,” Starlight commented.
“It looks evil,” Discord said, folding his arms. “Seriously, have you seen it? Ominous machine, glaring at all of us. It’s a wonder it hasn’t attacked yet.”
“Uh…” Pinkie tried really, really hard not to look nervous. “Y-yeah, it totally hasn’t done anything…”
Omega looked right at her.
“Ponyfeathers. Everyone, it’s erasing people from exist—”
>ENCIRCLE.EXE
—”I feel like we’re missing something,” Cadence said. “Has the Resistance seen this before?”
Sonic shook his head. “Never before.”
“I think I’ve seen a few of them outside, fighting the ships,” Starlight said. “Let’s try to make contact to figure out what it’s doin—”
>ENCIRCLE.EXE
“—g,” Cadence finished.
“Did you just answer your own question?” Sonic asked.
Cadence shrugged. “Come in, Enterprise, this is Caden—”
>ENCIRCLE.EXE
“This is the Enterprise. We’re a little busy, what’s your reason for calling?”
Amy looked at the Starfleet badge she had pinned to her dress. “I called?”
“Technical glitch, then. No harm done. Picard out.”
“Something’s wrong,” Discord said. “Something’s very wrong. I… I’m not strong. How did I even get here? How did I defeat all these slimes?”
“I…” Amy frowned. “Okay, that is weird.”
>ENCIRCLE.EXE. A ring appeared around Discord…
...Focusing all his energy, he snapped his fingers, tossing the ring away. “What was that!?”
“I don’t know, but it attacked!” Amy pointed at Omega. “Destroy it!”
The Romulans and Starfleet officers fired their energy weapons at Omega, only to come in contact with its shields. It took one look at the number of forces and realized encircling them would do little to cut down their numbers, so it tapped into its other weapons. Two large cannons burst out of its sides and charged up an attack.
That is, until Amy brought down her hammer on the cannons, bending them so they shot the ceiling instead of the army. Sonic entered a spin attack and hit Omega so hard one of the legs flew off, landing next to Discord—
>ENCIRCLE.EXE
—Amy was smashing Omega alone, and that was how it had always been. Just her, backed up by an army. She was the leader, she was the… none of this made any sense but she knew this robot had to die, so she kept flattening it, over and over, until it finally mustered enough energy to attack her.
>ENCIRCLE.E—
Discord drove Omega’s discarded leg right through its eye. Omega’s internal circuitry couldn’t handle this and it exploded, tossing Discord and Amy to the side.
And with its destruction, all those who had been encircled re-appeared just where they’d been.
“Oh, good, you guys figured it out.” Pinkie wiped her brow. “I was worried there!”
“Figured what out!?” Amy stammered. “I just hit it with a hammer until Discord made it explode!”
“That… was a terrible power,” Starlight said, taking a few steps back from the machine’s smoldering wreckage. “I was sure none of you had ever existed…”
“How could you forget this face?” Cortez asked, chuckling.
“That’s exactly it. I can’t and I shouldn’t have.” Starlight shivered. “I’m glad it’s toast, let’s just leave it at that.”
“At least our mission is still a success,” Cadence said. “And we’re all still here. ...Wait, where’s Luigi?”
“Everyone else reappeared…” Amy took a moment to scan around, frowning. “I don’t see him.”
“Where could h—”
They were interrupted when a small force of bruised and battered Resistance fighters appeared behind the Resistance blockade. Shining Armor strode to the front of the group, Fluttershy right behind him.
“Our blockade…” He sighed. “Has fallen. The reinforcements weren’t enough. We had to fall back.”
“Twilight and the others don’t have a clear shot to the Count anymore,” Fluttershy added, looking at the ground with shame.
Cadence ran to Shining Armor, pulling him into a kiss-filled embrace. “We’ll worry about that later. Right now… I just need to…” She began crying. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”
“You’re back now.” Shining pulled her close. “That’s all that matters.”
Amy looked at the two of them… and couldn’t help but smile. In the midst of bad news, there was still a beautiful reunion between two who had been separated for so long.
And it was about to repeat itself.
“I saved the day, did you hear?” Discord said, sliding up to Fluttershy. “Stabbed a robot with his own leg.”
Despite the gruesome nature of the description, Fluttershy giggled. “Gruesome. And chaotic.” She fluttered until she was eye level with his head and pulled him into a hug. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through this.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but couldn’t, for she’d just kissed him on the cheek and stunned him into absolute silence.
“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s probably too tense for th—”
Discord picked her up and kissed her back in a twirling dance of a motion.
And with this one act, Discord did what he was meant to do, and everything changed.
~~~
The Dark Prognosticus.
No one, after obtaining this amazing artifact, ever found happiness.
Right?
Crack.
~~~
Count Bleck felt the Chaos Heart change. The original evil that had created it had just been undone… and yet, its power did not falter.
Holding it in his hands, he stared deeply into its deep, dark surface. And it told him something new, something the Dark Prognosticus had never confirmed.
The game was different, now. A darkness had turned to light.
Count Bleck broke down in tears, dropping to the ground, pressing his hands into the edges of his pillar in the central chamber. Then he pulled his head back and looked to the ceiling, laughing as loudly as he could. “BLEH HEH HEH HEH HEH! BLECK! There is no end to the tragedy! It… it cannot be stopped!”
He looked down… and there was a lion standing on a pillar above his, which should have been impossible.
“When the worlds end, they will end out of love,” the lion said. “Not out of hate.”
Bleck pointed a shaking hand at him. “That… is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
The lion nodded, and was gone, leaving Count Bleck to weep.
~~~
Rosalina stood within the Comet Observatory, hands behind her back. She watched as ships and angels exploded outside, while her Lumas rushed around to offer assistance with their own stellar weapons. An explosion shook the Observatory, prompting a pen to roll off her desk and onto the ground with an ominous clatter.
Dimentio appeared behind Rosalina. “You could end it all with a shake of that wand of yours.”
Rosalina didn’t turn to look at him. “Your hopes are misplaced, Dimentio.”
“Ahahahaha!” Dimentio drifted around her like a loose moon. “I have no hopes of getting a response from you.”
“That was not what I was referring to, and you know it so well.”
“Stop me,” Dimentio demanded.
Rosalina looked away from him, fixing her gaze on the Enterprise drifting through the sky.
“Break one of your rules. You wrote them. You have the right.”
“You do not play the Adversary well,” Rosalina said. “There are far more effective ways to tempt.”
“Like a broken record in a time loop, you never change.” Dimentio threw his hands into the air. “No matter how different you look.”
Rosalina fixed him with a sad, mournful eye.
Dimentio let out a guttural growl. “...I have somewhere to be.” With a twist of space, he was gone.
Rosalina closed her eyes, tightening her grip on her wand. As she felt the Chaos Heart’s influence change, a small smile came to her lips.
~~~
“I… I remember everything!” Tippi said, suddenly.
Stats
Page generated in 0.027 seconds
Total duration
1,040 users online
253,300 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
No! Mario is dead! He could have soloed basically this entire story if he was here... I guess other heroes will have to do it for him.
JRPG bosses be like that. Just be thankful you don't have to fight them all on foot with sword and spell. My last trip into the Interdimensional Rift was harrowing to say the least...
Well that's terrifying. Not as terrifying as if they got their hands on the biggest boy, though, but I almost think Omega would be able to resist Borg assimilation...
As is tradition.
Well, I suppose that's best for all involved. I wonder if the other Weapons are around here somewhere...
Ah yes, the Splinters... I'll get to them when I get to them, if I ever do. I'm not GM, I can't pump out 100k words on a spur of the moment project in between working on two long form projects solving the mysteries of the universe. I can barely get out of bed in the morning.
SHOOT THE ORB! I think there's a ship in The Original Series that looks just like Ozma, but I forget which one.
This is so dumb. I love it.
As a wise echidna once said: "None of this is good, Vector. That's why it's called 'war'." Granted, this is slightly less silly than that infamous moment, but doing something better than Sonic Forces is not hard.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
panic panic panic panic IT COULDN'T DO THAT LAST TIME-
...Pinkie? How do you- oh right, I should know better by now. Serious though, mega concern. I'd say this is a new trick but it's really an old trick reimagined in a horrifying new way. Last time I fought it it just killed me with magnets...
Huh. Alright then. I can't dispute that. Discord does as Discord does.
...Wow. Omega went down like a bitch. This model clearly put all it's points into terrifying reality altering powers. To be taken out by Discord, using a physical attack... pathetic.
Let's hope none of the other bosses that can do that in the games can do that here...
Oh crap, Luigi is missing! We're in real trouble now...
Apparently, reality ships Fluttercord. Hard.
Reconnect. Kingdom Hearts.Somehow, I... really really doubt that? Space Princess is powerful, but she's not that powerful... right?
Uh... Don't look at me, I have no clue. If whatever this refers to was in the drafts I completely forgot it. Intriguing, though...
And, just as suddenly, the chapter ends.
Well, it's nice to know that the B and C Teams are holding their own. Omega was, as always, terrifying, but it's dead now so we're good. Also Fluttershy and Discord kissed and reality liked that. I mean, I like that too, I ship it, but also something something GM something something unrealistic romance pacing something something thematic criticism. Also Rosalina is like, a space god or something? I knew she was powerful, but what Dimentio said... and he seems to know something as well, but that's to be expected. Like an artbook for a game with a confusing story, he holds all sorts of secret knowledge...
11201651
remember the interlude chapters where the author makes comments?
We just met the author
11201669
More, the author was revealed, we already met her, just putting a face to the pen
Well this has been very action packed.
11201651
I'm pretty sure that was Omega mk.II , who could in fact use encircle to kill and eject a party member from the fight
11204536
Page search pen in the chapter.
11205153
Look for when a pen is mentioned using your browser's find in page tool
11206339
My thoughts exactly
They broke a prophecy