Chapter XVII: Aquarius, the Water World
[I know I usually put my Author's Notes at the end of chapters, but I just wanted to quickly touch on something before this one begins. This chapter marks the first real instance of the gore and death tags for this fic being justified. It's nothing major, but I wanted to point it out just in case, since it's a bit of a tonal shift that'll crop up again in the future. With that said, enjoy the chapter!]
As Floria faded into the distance behind them, Sunset spared a glance over at Popstar. Even at this distance, the Sun and Moon’s battle was plainly visible, though she supposed that perhaps that distance wasn’t all that great. Popstar seemed to be around the same size as Earth–and Equus, for that matter–and they couldn’t have been more than ten thousand kilometers away from it at this point. Things really were far closer together here than back home.
Forcing her mind back to the situation at hand, Sunset directed the Warp Star towards the next closest speck of light. “Alright, what do you know about our next target?” she asked.
“Aquarius is nearly entirely covered by one giant ocean,” Marx replied, the planet in question coming into view. “The Fountain might be underwater, for all we know.”
As they got closer, Sunset was able to confirm that Aquarius was, in fact, a bluer marble than even Earth. It wasn’t particularly large, smaller than Floria, even, but what surface it had was absolutely covered in water. From space, only a few small islands near the equator were visible, poking out above the surface. “Well that’s…unideal,” Sunset said. “Any plans?”
“None other than asking the locals for help.” Marx responded. “Aim for one of the islands. Maybe there’s a fishing village or something.”
Sunset nodded, plunging the Warp Star into Aquarius’s atmosphere. Just as with Floria, it hardly heated up at all. Just another quirk of this universe’s physics, Sunset supposed. Being able to stop on a dime was a plus too, letting them get down to a few meters above the ground without immediately dying.
Keeping the Warp Star hovering a bit in the air, Sunset glanced around at where they’d chosen to land. The island was clearly tropical, with a few palm trees scattered about. Marx was right about there being a village as well, given that there were a few thatch-roofed buildings around and several very curious locals.
“Hey, Sunset,” Marx asked, “do you know how to actually land this thing?”
Sunset frowned. “Maybe?”
“That is not reassuring.”
The Warp Star proceeded to drop like a rock, shattering into dozens of motes of light and dropping its occupants uncomfortably on the ground. The star-shaped remains of their ride once again orbited Sunset once before absorbing themselves into her horn.
“I think you dropped us down faster than free fall would’ve,” Marx groaned.
Sunset sighed and pushed herself to her hooves. “Well sorry if it’s my first time trying to land a spaceship with my brain!”
A Waddle Dee walked up to them. “Are uh, you two alright?” the concerned bystander asked.
Sunset brushed herself off as Marx hopped to his feet. “We’re good!” he replied. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know where this planet’s Fountain of Dreams would be, would you?”
The Waddle Dee backed up and narrowed his eyes. “Why’re you looking for it?”
Sunset pointed up, where Popstar and its celestial problems were visible, clear as day. Until it became night. And then day again. “We’re trying to stop that.”
The Dee looked up, his eyes widening.
“So we’ll ask again,” Sunset said, “do you know where the Fountain of Dreams is?”
The Waddle Dee shuddered and tore his gaze from the sky. “I don’t,” he said, “but I know someone who might.” He pointed down the path into the village. “There’s a Simirror who lives by the docks that should be able to help you.”
Marx grinned. “Thanks!” Without another word, he ran off into the village, Sunset following close behind.
“Wait!” the Dee called. Sunset stalled and turned around to look at him curiously. Marx, it seemed, was already out of earshot, though. “Are you really gonna summon Nova to stop the Sun and Moon?”
Sunset hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. The Waddle Dee, at least, didn’t seem to notice her mistake, and her lie came out as smooth as ever. “Yes.”
“Hey girls, what’d I miss?”
Rarity started and placed a hoof over her chest as Pinkie manifested herself right next to her. “Pinkie, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Oops. Sorry, Rarity!”
“‘Tis quite alright, darling,” Rarity sighed. “I trust you found a place for Sweetie and her friends to rest?”
“Yep!” Pinkie exuberantly said. “I found Discord’s guest room and made sure that there were no eldritch horrors from beyond space and time nearby!”
“Eldritch horrors?” Luna asked apprehensively.
Starlight looked curious. “Beyond space and time?”
Discord actually seemed mildly surprised. “I have a guest room?”
The remaining four Element Bearers all glanced at each other. “It’s Pinkie Pie,” they all said in unison, as if rehearsed. “Don’t question it.”
Pinkie giggled.
“Anyway, Pinkie, ya didn’t miss all that much,” Applejack said as Sunset and Marx entered a building on-screen. “They got one of those star thingies and are lookin’ for the next.”
“I wonder what they’re gonna fight this time!” Rainbow interjected. “Maybe it’ll be a giant squid!”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “And how d’ya figure that?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Well, they are on an ocean world.”
“I hope they don’t have to fight anything,” Fluttershy whispered. “Just think of all the cute little critters they could meet in an alien ocean!”
This Simirror, Sunset decided, was one of the most annoying inhabitants of this universe she’d encountered thus far. And considering that she had been living in the same building as Dedede, that was quite the accomplishment. Unlike the selfish king, though, whose annoying tendencies were a consequence of his personality, the Simirror they were speaking with had one, incredibly grating trait.
“So, ye be lookin’ fer the Fountain of Dreams, eh?”
His voice.
Still, considering that he was their only lead, she put up with it. Sunset nodded with a fake smile. “We were told you could help.”
“Well, whoever told ye that bit o’ advice knew their way ‘round town,” the Simirror said. He opened a drawer in his desk and drew from it a map. “Whoever built the damned thing wanted ta keep it good an’ hidden. But I still think I’ve found it.” He rolled the map out on top of his desk. “Ye’ve come at a good time. I was just about ta stage an expedition out there meself.”
“And you’ll take us along?” Marx prompted.
The Simirror laughed. “Ye’ll be more crew than I’ve ever gone wit’ afore. But it’ll be good ta have someone watchin’ me back. Ye never know what can happen out at sea.” Using his staff, he pointed at the map, tracing down towards an island. “We set off in fifteen minutes. It’s an hour’s journey ta the island, but I know not where on–or in–the island the Fountain lies. But if we can find it,” he chuckled, “consider me timbers shivered.”
Sunset took a moment to mentally translate that to plain Ponish and nodded. “Just one more thing before we go,” she said, prompting the Simirror to look up at her. “Can you drop the pirate act? I don’t think you even used that last phrase correctly.”
“Oi, that’s me voice yer riffin’ on!” the Simirror tried to counter.
Sunset raised an eyebrow.
He rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he conceded while rolling up the map, “ruin my fun, why don’tcha.”
His map stored, the Simirror got up and made for the door. Marx and Sunset made to follow, and the former opened his mouth as they stepped outside. “By the way, I don’t think we ever actually introduced ourselves,” he mentioned. “I’m Marx, and my equine friend here is Sunset!”
The Simirror glanced at them for a moment before continuing towards the docks. “Call me Sam.”
Sam the Simirror’s ship, while seafaring, seemed somewhat shoddily constructed, at least by Sunset Shimmer’s limited skill at seamareship. The boat was a relatively rickety thing, clearly at least a few decades old. Sam seemed fairly experienced, though; it took only moments for him to untie the ship and push them off the dock.
Well, perhaps “ship” was being generous. The fiberglass construction was little more than a medium-sized motorboat. Which would be fine if their goal was to waterski on a lake, but this was a bit more extreme than that.
With a sputter, the motor started chugging in neutral. Sam let them drift away from the dock a bit before he placed a hand on the throttle. “You two might want to hold on to something!”
Marx glanced at his very distinct lack of arms and raised an eyebrow.
Sunset rolled her eyes and made sure he was telekinetically secured. “You sure this is a good idea, Sam?” She pursed her lips. “This boat seems…I don’t want to say ‘not seaworthy,’ but…”
Sam scoffed. “Please, this baby has served me well for forty years, and she'll do so for another twenty years yet if I have anything to say about it!” He grinned. “Hold on to your hats.”
Without another word, he gunned it.
The motor began whirring with a deafening roar as the boat launched forward. Its bow tilted so far upward that Sunset couldn’t even see in front of it from her position in the passenger seat. Looking behind them, the docks were already naught but a distant image, and absolutely massive wakes spilled out from the stern.
Luckily, at least, it was a clear day with calm waters, so they encountered no waves steep enough to send them flying. Sunset grinned as she felt the wind whipping through her mane and the salty smell of the ocean filled the air. It’d been years since she’d gotten the chance to visit the sea, outside of their battle with the Halberd above Orange Ocean. Really the last time she’d been was…she blinked in surprise and realization. The last time she’d been to the ocean on an actual visit was before she even applied for CSGU.
“So, what’s got you two looking for the Fountain?” Sam shouted over the wind.
“We’re summoning Nova to stop the Sun and Moon from fighting!” Marx shouted back.
Sam glanced upward and nodded. “A noble goal,” he noted.
They rode on in silence after that, and nothing of real note happened for another forty-five minutes. There wasn’t really all that much to discuss, after all, until they did hit a steep enough wave to send them flying. They didn’t spend very long in the air, but it was long enough that Sunset could legitimately feel them being in free fall.
Sunset braced herself against the seat as the boat splashed back down. “God, I hope I remember an air bubble charm,” she said, lighting her horn just in case.
Marx looked at her confusedly. “What would you need that for?”
Sunset grimaced as they hit another wave. “Y’know, in case we capsize or something.”
Marx tilted his head. “You can’t breathe underwater in your home universe?”
“Sunburst?”
“Yeah, Starlight?”
“You’ve overfilled your glass.”
Sunset felt her jaw drop. She tried to articulate some sort of response, but found herself simply sitting there in astonished silence. Her auditory cortex had heard the words perfectly fine and sent them along for processing, but her prefrontal cortex simply refused to accept such a ludicrous possibility as reality.
At least, until they hit yet another wave and she nearly bit off her own tongue. Deciding to mentally table that little tidbit for now, she glared at Sam. “Are you even watching where we’re going?”
Without verbally responding, Sam yanked the wheel to the left. With how fast it was going, the boat drifted a solid forty degrees to face the next wavefront head-on and caught some more airtime. As they crashed back down and Sam corrected their direction, he grunted. “If we take one of those to the side we’re going port over starboard, and I’d prefer not to have to flip my boat back over in the middle of the ocean.”
“What’s even making these waves, anyway?” Marx shouted, looking up at the sky. There were a few clouds visible, but nothing that looked like an incoming storm. Given the size of the planet, though, visibility was limited. The horizon was pretty close–probably only a kilometer or so away–and had a highly pronounced curve. “Doesn’t look like it should be windy.”
After hopping another wave, Sam pointed upward. “Those there are altostratus clouds. There’s a front rolling it, right between us and the Fountain.”
“Shouldn’t we just go around the storm, then?” Sunset inquired.
Sam shook his head. “That could take us hours longer. Best we just charge straight through and hope it holds out long enough for us to get under it.”
The weather, unfortunately, did not hold out for long enough. After a few minutes of crashing through ever-steeper waves, the first raindrop fell while they were still a solid ten minutes from the Fountain’s island. Thirty seconds later, and the storm was fully raging. A massive headwind was buffeting them, drastically slowing down their pace. The storm wasn’t nearly as bad as it was on Floria–that had essentially been hurricane-force winds–but it was still pretty bad. Even heading into the waves optimally, water was sloshing into the boat, which Marx and Sunset were doing their best to bail. Sam, at least, seemed to have been prepared for something like this–there were buckets stored below deck.
The Moon had managed to boot the Sun out of the sky for a bit just as they went under the clouds, too, making it even darker than it already was. A flash of lightning illuminated them as Sunset tossed another bucketful of water out of the boat. After the rumble of thunder passed over them, Sunset opened her mouth. “Still think this’ll be faster than going around?” she shouted.
Sunset couldn’t see Sam’s face clearly under his hat (which she was privately astonished was still on in this wind), but she could still tell that his eyes narrowed. “I’ve been boating my whole life, lassie,” he boasted. “I’ve made it through worse.”
Another flash of lightning, and Marx, who had been looking down at the water at the time, grimaced. “Uh, guys?” he called. “Something below us is moving. And big.”
“There’s a shoal of Squishy that like to swim around this area, but they shouldn’t get too close.” Sam said. He throttled back, letting their speed drop a bit. “There, that shouldn’t aggravate them.”
There was a crunching sound from the stern, and everyone flicked their attention to it just in time to see a massive white tentacle rip the motor clean off. In but a moment, they slowed to a complete standstill, the boat now entirely at the sea’s mercy.
And it didn’t feel very merciful.
“You were saying?” Sunset deadpanned.
Sam got up and grabbed his staff as the abnormally large Squishy began emerging from the water. “What in the world?”
Sunset had seen images of Squishies on their second day in Dreamland, when Twilight had had the three of them chew through every book in Castle Dedede’s library (which the princess had found sorely lacking; they got through it in under two hours). They were eight-tentacled cephalopods, though their bodies seemed more akin to Earth’s and Equus’s squids than their octopi. Usually docile, Squishies, Blippers, and Glunks made up the majority of large animals in Popstar’s oceans. They ranged in size from around Kirby’s height–half a meter or so–but they could grow as large as five meters under the right conditions.
It seemed that Aquarius had those perfect conditions, because the Squishy attacking them had to be at least four meters from its top fin to its arms. And with their (formerly motor)boat being as small as it was and the backdrop of a stormy ocean, it seemed more like the old stories of krakens than any reasonably sized squid. The Squishy did not roar, for it was incapable of doing so. Instead, it just slammed another tentacle down, shattering the boat’s windshield.
Sunset, of course, had the proper reaction to getting attacked by a sea monster.
She screamed “Holy shit!” and started blasting.
Unfortunately, the Squishy didn’t seem particularly hurt by her spur-of-the-moment magical laser. If anything, it only seemed to anger it further. It responded by trying to slam another tentacle down, but this one was actually blocked. With a wave of his staff, Sam summoned a mirror that, defying what little physics Sunset thought she still had a grasp on, sent the attack back. As the Squishy slammed its own tentacle back into its face, Sam kept up the pressure. For a split second, Sunset could see two of him on opposite sides of the boat, before the potentials collapsed into a single image as he teleported closer to his target and sent a stream of mirror shards right into another tentacle.
The Squishy seemed extremely durable, though, powering through the glass and readying another attack. Sunset’s mind flew through the magic she could use against it. Pyroturgy wouldn’t really be useful without completely exhausting herself, cryoturgy would be just as likely to freeze her allies as her target, she was rusty enough at hydroturgy that she didn’t want to chance it, and anything she tried regarding atmoturgy would be lost in the wind. There was, though, one other school of magic she could try here.
“Hey Marx,” she requested, “could you distract it for a bit?”
“On it,” he replied, leaping from his seat near the bow, over the destroyed windshield, and landing close to the stern. “Hey, big guy!” he called, diverting the Squishy’s attention away from Sam. “What’s it like to have nine brains and use none of them?”
Sunset readied a powerful silencing, darkening, and cooling charm and focused on her magic. She would need total concentration if she was going to pull this off.
The school of magic dealing with the manipulation of electromagnetism does not have an official name in this day and age. For the longest time, it was simply called phototurgy, as the earliest wizards to develop it believed it to harness the power of lightning, and nothing more. The name stuck for millenia, until the discovery of electromagnetism forced wizards to consider electroturgy and phototurgy separate schools. That was, until the additional discovery that light was electromagnetic radiation reunified them. And the more recent discovery of the electroweak force threw the official name of the school into flux once again, even if “electroturgy” was still used colloquially.
Regardless, the magic that Sunset was planning on using did have an official name. Electrokinesis was simply the magic that dealt with direct manipulation of charged particles, after all, so the name fit rather well. On a quantum level, this amounted to her magic producing a large number of high-energy photons directed to bombard a specific column of air. These were absorbed by the electrons of the material’s constituent atoms, exciting the particles and tearing them from their corresponding nuclei. In the same instant, Sunset released her silencing, darkening, and cooling charms, as to not deafen, blind, or boil her or her allies.
The air’s conductivity spiked, and the natural built-up charges in the stormcloud and water suddenly had a convenient route through which to equalize. Now free to move, electrons in the cloud hopped from atom to atom, forced in the opposite direction of the electric field as per their very nature. In about three milliseconds, all of the energy stored in the cloud-ocean capacitor was released in the form of heat and light.
In two words: lightning struck.
Panting, Sunset let her charms fall, allowing the group full view of a very damaged Squishy. Despite being hit with around thirty kiloamps of current, it was still alive, though sinking back into the ocean. Clearly it decided that this prey was far too difficult to catch.
Sunset peered over the edge for a moment before turning around with a grin. “Well, that happened. Have any oars we can use to get the rest of the way?”
Sam opened the storage compartment in the boat’s deck. “I definitely should have them in here somewhere.”
As Sunset and Marx watched him rummage around, she felt something wet wrap around her back right hoof. When she looked back, her brain didn’t even have time to register it as a tentacle–one from the Squishy that had just retreated, in fact–before she was pulled backwards with a yelp. Marx and Sam both whirled around in distress, but neither could stop her from being pulled over the edge.
She felt her head hit the side of the boat, and everything went black.
Discord’s living room was pandemonium. That was not an unusual state of affairs for the home of a god of chaos, but this instance was notable in that the chaos was caused by his guests, not him. A series of gasps rang out from the audience the moment Sunset’s cranium impacted the hull, and the sharp sound of shattering glass rang out as Sunburst reflexively dropped his glass of wine.
He didn’t seem to care very much.
Celestia seemed to be channeling centuries of practice in not lashing out as she looked at Discord. “Save them.”
Discord snapped a paw.
Predictably, nothing happened.
“Like I said, there’s nothing I c-”
“Bullshit,” Celestia interrupted, swearing for what must have been the first time in decades.
Rarity fainted. Everypony else looked at the princess, completely shocked. Even Discord was caught off guard. “Listen, Celly, I’ve tried just about everything. Void locked down Its multiverse tight.”
“You are the god of chaos,” Celestia emphasized. “And you claim to have tried everything?”
“Yes.”
In one swift movement, Celestia had whirled around and telekinetically pinned Discord to the wall. “This is the first chance I have had to see Sunset in eight years. I cannot squander it. Surely you can do something.”
Discord shrugged, entirely ignoring the telekinesis and walking forward. “I’m flattered by your assumption of my omnipotence, but it’s quite simple: I’m outclassed.”
“Twilight got through,” Rainbow pointed out. “So unless you’re admitting that she’s more powerful than you…”
Discord guffawed. “Please, more powerful than me? Twiggles breaking through was a cosmic fluke, and you’re all lucky it didn’t destroy the universe in the process.”
Fluttershy let out a squeak of surprise and ducked below the couch as the others all processed that. “That…that was a possibility?” Celestia blanched.
Discord nodded. “Either you got extremely lucky, or there’s something more going on.” In a snap, he teleported everyone back into their seats as Marx sprouted his wings and took off towards Sunset’s unconscious body. “But it’s not something I can do anything about, so all we can do is watch.”
When Sunset came to, the first thing she noticed–before she even opened her eyes–was her pounding headache. Between the mana burn she’d had over the past weeks and the physical trauma, she was really starting to get tired of those. She opened her eyes and her retinas were immediately assaulted by bright sunlight; it seemed that the Sun had once more overtaken the sky. She blinked twice and groaned. With how blurry her vision was, she was definitely concussed.
Feeling around, she could tell that she was on a beach. The sand was warm, but not overly so, and the waves gently lapped around her hooves. Ignoring the pain, she rolled over onto her side, forced herself up, and began casting one of the few self-healing spells she remembered. She hadn’t really had the time to study non-combat blood magic before her falling out with Celestia, but what little she remembered was enough to recover her vision, at least.
Even a licensed blood mage, though, would have difficulty matching the same healing efficiency that this universe’s food offered. Equestrian magic would only be able to replicate the life-saving effects of a maxim tomato if multiple unicorn doctors operated simultaneously. So that was her next target: finding something to eat.
Luckily, there was a palm tree nearby. With only a mild bit of strain, she telekinetically picked a coconut off the plant and ripped off its husk. Apparently it wasn’t fully ripe, given the amount of water that spilled out. Still, there was enough flesh built up that she could eat.
She recoiled a bit at the extremely strong taste. She’d never really cared for coconut, but she was willing to power through it for the healing properties. Besides, she was hungry; she hadn’t eaten breakfast and had spent the past few hours gallivanting around Popstar’s planetary neighbors, after all.
Thankfully, the coconut retained this universe’s quirk of healing food, and her symptoms were abated. Once she was satisfied that she wouldn’t suffer permanent brain damage, she shook the sand out of her mane and looked around. Well then, she thought, this is…not ideal.
The area she was in was just screaming deserted island vibes. A tropical beach, complete with the soft white sands, stretched from the ocean to a few meters inland. From there, the island was covered in grass, save for a smattering of coconut palms. Considering that she couldn’t see any sign of the boat–or Sam or Marx, for that matter–she would have been rather concerned that she would be stuck there.
Would have been, were it not for a constant magical pressure on her horn.
It could have been leftover from the concussion, but Sunset doubted that. Between Popstar’s and Floria’s Fountains, she knew how Fountain magic felt at this point. This had the same underlying feel to it, even if the general vibe the magic was giving off was unique. Aquarius’s Fountain felt like a sunny, tropical day. Smiling, Sunset followed the magical field as it got stronger. Just drifting up onto the Fountain’s island was extraordinarily lucky, but she would take the universe acting in her favor for once.
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like it was going to be that easy. The magic led her into a large cave, which had nothing in it except a pool of water at the back. Sunset raised an eyebrow at it and trotted closer. The magic seemed like it would be strongest in the water itself, and Sunset recalled what Marx had said earlier about underwater breathing. It seemed ridiculous, but she was out of options. Leaning down so that just her nose was in the water, she sniffed.
She’d been expecting, if subconsciously, for water to flood her sinuses. That was, after all, what usually happened when one breathed water through their nose. In this case, however, she was pleasantly surprised by the fact that she wasn’t inhaling water at all. Instead, it was like she was somehow breathing the dissolved oxygen right out of the water without gills.
Sunset shrugged, mentally cried yolo, and jumped in.
Fortunately, the ability to breath underwater carried on existing below the surface, so she didn’t drown. It was, however, rather dark. With a soft aquamarine glow, the walls became visible. The cave, it seemed, continued on below the surface, so she started swimming.
She had been swimming for a solid five minutes or so, generally moving downward, when she noticed something odd about the cave she was in. Earlier on, it had looked like a completely natural flooded cave, but–she swam over to the wall–this portion of it seemed artificial. It was far too smooth to be a natural formation. As she kept moving, she felt like her suspicions were confirmed. The previously roughly-cylindrical cave now had distinct, right angle corners, and the stonework was increasingly ornate.
Then the cave opened up into a massive, underwater cavern, and Sunset’s jaw dropped.
Along the cavern floor, which was several meters below her, stood a myriad of stone buildings. Some sort of glowing stone illuminated the streets, and Sunset could even see what looked like a market square. There were structures built into the walls, too, presumably accessed by swimming up to them. This wasn’t just some cave with the Fountain, it was a full-on underwater city.
Or at least, it would have been, had it been populated.
Indeed, the entire city seemed abandoned. No one, save for a few curious Blippers, were swimming around the streets. There were no creatures going about their day-to-day lives, no one in the market selling goods. In fact, Sunset noticed as she swam through, the city looked like it had been abandoned for a long time; the stonework on most of the buildings had been eroded away, and thinner portions had crumbled entirely.
The most intriguing of the whole thing was the gaping hole in the cavern’s ceiling. It was shaped like a massive slash, as if some angry god had taken a sword and cleaved directly through the rock. From her position, she could see straight through the slash to the ocean above, which was definitely where the few Blippers had swam through.
Sunset shook her head. She didn’t have time to consider whatever had forced this city’s abandonment; she had a Fountain to find. Following the magic, though, she passed by a building that caught her eye. Or, perhaps more accurately, it caught her horn, for it also had a noticeable magical presence. Whatever magic could survive this long without being maintained had to be extremely powerful–she had to take a look.
Curiously, Sunset swam through a broken window. The hallway reminded her more of a human university than anything, with a row of doors on the interior side. As she followed the magic, she sent out a detection charm–the same one she’d used on the Element of Magic back during her attempted heist. That had to have been what, less than two weeks ago? It felt like it had been much longer, but she supposed that she’d crammed quite a bit into those two weeks.
The detection spell pinged back with what spell was giving off the magic she was following. All it was able to pick up was a simple stasis spell, meant to ward off biological and physical decay. Clearly, someone had wanted to protect whatever was in here. She reached the door the magic was behind within a few moments and, bracing herself, opened it.
She immediately shut it again, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. There was a dead body in there.
She took a few deep breaths to calm herself and tried to keep from vomiting. It wasn’t the first time she’d ever seen a dead body–her grandmother’s funeral came to mind, along with the homeless man she’d found frozen under a bridge on her twelfth night on Earth. And the body was old, the stasis spell had just kept it from decaying and the water from dissolving it. She’d just never seen that much blood before.
Steeling herself, she opened the door again. The room seemed to have once been an office of some kind, but both walls adjacent to the door’s had been destroyed. Violently, if the debris spread across the desk was anything to go by. Several papers–which Sunset assumed had been enchanted to survive in the water–littered the floor near knocked-over filing cabinets. Some part of her mind noticed and catalogued all of that, but most of her attention was on the body.
It was humanoid, but definitely wasn’t human. The only skin she could tell that from was its blue hands; the rest of its torso, arms, and legs was covered by a long white robe. The body’s head just wasn’t there. It had landed just on the edge of the stasis spell, allowing the ocean to claim everything above its shoulders. What had killed it, though, was quite clear: the massive circular hole in its chest, like it had been stabbed straight through with a lance.
That was most of what Sunset could see through the massive cloud of still, bloody water that surrounded the body, but one additional thing caught her eye. In its left hand, the body was holding an open book. She couldn’t quite see what was in it from this angle, but if the pen in the body’s right hand was anything to go by, it was in the process of writing something when it had been killed. Careful to not get any of the blood on it, Sunset grasped the book in her telekinesis, pulled it out into the hallway with her, and shut the door.
Once the door was closed, Sunset sat down hard. That wasn’t physically taxing in any capacity, sure, but mentally it felt inherently wrong to steal straight from a dead being’s hands. But this book seemed like the only thing in there that was worth saving, so clearly that creature had wanted someone to have it.
Looking down at the book, still opened to the page it had been whenever its owner was killed, her suspicions of it being their final words were confirmed. At the bottom of the page was an ink mark running diagonally to the rest of the text and straight off the page from, she assumed, when the being’s arm was jerked back when it was stabbed.
The text, though, was completely foreign to her. Frowning, she flipped back to the beginning to see if the final entry just had horrible handwriting from being hastily written. Alas, the characters were still completely unrecognizable to Sunset. That wasn’t completely unexpected, though. When the Mirror had sent her to Earth, it had given her some sort of proficiency in spoken English, but left her illiterate while on the planet. It had taken her a full two months to learn enough of the written language just to get by.
For a moment, she pondered how, exactly, that might work. Maybe the Mirror absorbed the spoken languages around it and transferred that knowledge to those going through? If, for example, the Mirror had deigned to dump her in Canterlot, Mexico instead of Canterlot, Ohio, would she have known spoken Spanish instead of English? Perhaps something similar was going on here.
Her eyes narrowed. No, that couldn’t quite be it. She’d seen what written Somnic–the language spoken by Dreamlanders–looked like from Bandee. That had sweeping calligraphy akin to something like Arabic or her native Ponish, not whatever blocky text this was. It actually seemed rather similar to the Latin alphabet, albeit with more right angles and rotated letters.
Shrugging, she snapped the book shut and hit it with a storage spell. She’d just ask Marx if he knew anything about it once she’d found him and the Fountain.
The Fountain, as it turned out, wasn’t too far away. It was tucked away near the cavern’s wall, with several of the city’s roads leading right to it. She would have loved nothing more than to swim right up to it, touch the Star Rod, and ride out of there.
Unfortunately, one massive obstacle swam between her and her goal: a very big, very blue, and very aggressive whale.
As soon as it saw her, the whale had let out a bellowing, low call and charged at her. It was ungodly fast for its size, and Sunset was barely able to swim out of the way before it slammed into the building behind her and crushed it to smithereens.
She silently cursed herself as she tried to keep away from the whale’s attacks. She’d never been too big into swimming before, and her slowness was costing her precious chances to attack back with how focused she was on dodging. Much like the Squishy from before, the whale’s blubber was thick enough to absorb any of the magic she threw at it. She was going to have to get creative.
Fire wasn’t an option, and ice wasn’t one either if she didn’t want to freeze herself to death. Air elemental magic wasn’t available for obvious reasons, and using anything electric while she was also under the water was a supremely bad idea. She had to teleport out of the way of another charge and mentally berated herself again. Hydrokinesis would have been an extremely viable option if she was any good at it, but she had been only slightly above average with it back in CSGU and was sure to be rather rusty after eight years of disuse. In some recess of her mind, she made a mental note to fix her crippling overspecializations. The rest of her brain was busy trying to figure out how to take this thing down.
Thankfully, at least, she didn’t have to worry about mana burn with the Fountain so close by, letting her teleport at will. The whale seemed content to charge at her with an open mouth, but she couldn’t just teleport right to the Star Rod and resolve it then and there. If it took too long to get the Warp Star, she’d be her attacker’s lunch.
Instead, she flexed her magical muscles by telekinetically ripping the destroyed building off its foundation. With a shout, she threw the mass of stone through the water, specifically targeting the whale’s eyes. That seemed to work; the whale stopped charging for a moment. It then just redoubled its efforts, though, swimming even faster this time.
Sunset yelped and teleported again, allowing the whale to slam into the ground. Instead of charging again, however, it responded by sending a jet of high-velocity water out from its blowhole, hitting Sunset and slamming her into the cavern wall. It didn’t break anything, but it was still rather painful.
She was barely able to reorient herself and kick off the wall before the whale caught up and slammed full force into her previous position. Its blubber seemed to act almost like a kind of bouncy rubber, ricocheting it back into the open cavern. It couldn’t growl, but Sunset would have sworn that she heard it do so as it looked at her.
Suddenly, a voice echoed out in the cavern from where Sunset had originally entered. “Need any help?”
Sunset teleported out of the way of another charge. Momentarily safe again, she glanced at where Marx’s voice had come from to see him rapidly swimming towards her.
Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “Somethin’s fishy there.”
Pinkie giggled. “Whales aren’t fish, silly! They’re mammals!”
Applejack shook her head exasperatedly. “No, Ah mean ‘bout how Marx only showed back up now. We know he’s been followin’ Sunset, so why’d he decide to help out at just the right moment?”
Rarity, who had recovered from her earlier fainting spell, frowned. “You are correct, Applejack, that does seem rather strange.”
Applejack huffed. “Ah don’t trust him.”
“Where’ve you been?” Sunset asked, throwing the remains of a street lamp at the whale to interrupt another charge.
Marx, despite not having arms, still was able to swim quite a bit faster than her. “Well, after you got dragged off the boat, we lost sight of you pretty quickly. Sam had some emergency oars, though, so we were able to row to the island, at least, but he turned back to go back to town.”
Sunset didn’t have the time to mentally parse through the exact sequence of events, so she just took his explanation at face value. After all, most of her attention was still on the whale, which was charging at them again. “Hey, think you can distract this thing long enough for me to get us a Warp Star out of here?”
Marx grinned. “Oh, absolutely.”
Sunset didn’t verbally respond, instead charging her horn and getting off a double teleport just before the whale would’ve slammed into them. Sunset positioned herself close to the Star Rod, and would’ve been within charging distance of the whale if it wasn’t for where she’d teleported Marx to.
“Hey, Fatty!” Marx taunted from above the whale, forcing it to clumsily turn itself to face him. “Any cake recommendations? You look like you eat a lot of ‘em!”
Sunset didn’t listen for the whale’s reaction, instead reaching out to the Star Rod and praying that it would work in time. One light show later, and a deep blue Warp Star had formed below the fountain, which she eagerly jumped onto.
She sped right towards Marx, snatching him out from the whale’s jaws just before they closed. In a single, swift motion, she tossed him onto the Warp Star as well before changing course and launching out of the cavern through the gash in the ceiling. In naught but a few seconds, they flew out of the ocean floor, out of the water, and out of the atmosphere.
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Oh my goodness I absolutely adored this chapter I cannot wait for the next update hopefully it's not to long also Yes Applejack do not trust Marx for one second goodness it's going to hurt Sunset so much
Huh they got what they needed without beating it... makes sense actually given they lack Kirby's raw power and brutality.
Galacta Knight?
Oh boy, things sure got tense between Celly/Discord regarding not been able to pull our Equestria Trio out of that planet, especially given the hairy situation Sunset was in!
And speaking of tense the rest of the Mane 6 are starting to see Marx true colors, here's hoping Sunset caughts on what's happening with this guy as well soon!
11477979
I try to aim to get at least one chapter out a week when in the middle of an arc like this, but depending on how quickly I can get it done it might only be a couple of days.
11477982
If they absolutely needed to take out the Fatty Whale, they probably could have eventually. But given that they had a massive movement disadvantage from the fight being underwater, why not take the easy way out?
11478191
All I'll say here is that Aquarius wasn't always smaller than Floria.
11478315
The only surefire way to get Celestia to snap is to target those she cares about. I'd imagine that, if Discord had shown them Twilight's bout with Kirby, she'd have reacted similarly.
I am curious what will happen during Kirby's dreamland 2? (personal theory I believe dark matter will think Twilight is more powerful then Dedede and posses her instead.)
Okay, I’ve just finished reading the story so far, and I must say you’ve done a great job! I especially like how the MLP characters interact with the Kirby world via talking with each other and reacting to the environment/events. Also the way you’ve presented Kirby lore.
I look forward to what comes next.
11493098
Fair Enough.
At this rate, Sunburst is gonna be SLOSHED by the time they get to Halfmoon.