Chapter XXXI: Orange Sunsets
“S-Spike the dragon was possessed,” Steve stuttered out, terrified out of his mind.
“What color were his eyes?” Meta Knight asked, his voice low.
Steve shuddered, unable to properly formulate a response.
“What color were Spike’s eyes?” Meta repeated.
“P-Princess Twilight said that they w-were black,” Steve said.
Meta Knight’s eyes went wide and he backed off. Steve almost collapsed as he did, having to prop himself up on his broom. The knight’s eyes were calculating behind his mask, but he seemed to reach a conclusion in only a moment. “Are they still at Castle Dedede?”
Steve shakily shook his head no. “I d-don’t know where they went, but they’re chasing after Spike.”
“Guesswork it is,” Meta Knight sighed. “Shimmer, with me,” he ordered, turning to walk out of the gymnasium. “Sailor, you’re in charge of the complex until I get back.”
Sailor Dee saluted. “I won’t let you down, Sir!”
As soon as they had exited the gymnasium, Sunset raised an eyebrow at the knight. “What was that about? You scared the dude half to death!”
Instead of answering directly, Meta Knight looked up at the sky. The sunset was just as beautiful as previous ones over Orange Ocean, illuminating the waters in that strange glow. “Sky’s still clear,” he said. “We still have time to thwart a full-fledged invasion.”
“Invasion?” Sunset asked, aghast. “From what?”
The pair were moving at a brisk pace now, gunning for the residential suites. “We call it the Darkness,” Meta Knight explained. “It’s like a disease upon the universe, existing solely to replicate itself and spread from planet to planet. My knowledge of it is limited to my people’s legends and the tales we have heard from survivors, but I had hoped that they were no more than tall tales.” He seemed to frown behind his mask. “It appears that that hope was misplaced; the stories are generally inconsistent, but a constant among them is that a host’s eyes turn black..”
“So…what does this Darkness actually do?” Sunset asked.
“It is a parasite, forcing apathy upon its host and growing more powerful for it. Eventually, it acts as a drain on an entire planet’s emotion,” Meta Knight said, his voice showing his clear disdain for these creatures. “With sufficient power, it can reduce whole worlds’ wills to the point where its victims no longer care enough to eat. Or drink. Or breathe.”
“Holy shit,” Sunset whispered.
“Thankfully, it seems like it hasn’t reached that point with Popstar, yet,” Meta Knight added as they entered a building. “But if it has taken young Spike as a host, it is likely planning something to gain power.”
Sunset narrowed her eyes. “We need to find it.” After thinking about it for a moment, she continued. “But…we have no idea where.”
“Not exactly,” Meta Knight said as they entered his personal quarters. “I assume you felt that sudden sense of nihilism a few hours ago?”
Sunset blinked. “To be honest, I thought that was just me being a bit more cynical than normal.”
Meta Knight nodded. “I had thought the same of myself, but now I suspect that the Darkness is attacking ambient sources of emotion magic. We shall check the Rainbow Islands first. How fast is your self-levitation?”
“Decent, and I should be able to make it and still have some gas left in the tank afterward. But,” Sunset tilted her head in confusion as Meta Knight made for a safe of some sort, “what are you grabbing before we go?”
Meta Knight entered the safe’s combination and–making sure that he was angled away from Sunset–lifted his mask for a retinal scan. “The object that I believe has shielded us from the worst of the apathy,” he explained. “My personal blade.”
Sunset blinked. “I thought you already had a sword you liked?”
Indeed, he had been holding a sword even as they walked into his quarters, and he had only placed it down directly next to the safe just as he was beginning to open it.
“This is a blade I reserve for only the most extreme of emergencies,” Meta Knight said. “It is a weapon of extraordinary power, passed down from generation to generation. According to legend, an ancestor of mine used it to strike down a series of tyrant kings possessed by the Darkness. It’s been called Darkness’s Bane and the Lightbringer in the past, but its modern name is simple.”
He reached into the safe once it was fully open, pulling out a golden sword. It looked positively vicious, four sharpened prongs jutting out from its sides. Combined with its tip, the five-pronged sword seemed more designed for torture than combat, since a design like that would serve to completely eviscerate a victim.
Meta Knight lifted the sword up, the lighting from above glinting off the orange gem embedded in its guard. “Galaxia.”
As it turned out, even just getting to Cloudy Park was going to be a chore. Only five of their number could fly directly, and Kirby and Gooey weren’t exactly well-equipped to carry someone. Chuchu and Rick had figured out a strange hot air balloon-like tactic to move in the air, so that at least reduced the load down to three. Bandee hitched a ride on Dedede’s back, Coo just kept carrying Kine, and Twilight offered to levitate Nago over.
Of course, that led to its own problems. Gooey, Twilight, and Coo were already the only highly maneuverable fliers, and with Coo carrying a giant fish it left him severely encumbered. And Twilight had to focus on not dropping Nago, so that left the absentminded Gooey as the only member of the group who could quickly dart around in the air.
But even all of that would not have been an issue if not for the conditions around Cloudy Park. For the entire mountain was surrounded by thick, almost black stormclouds, roiling and churning with pent-up energy, just waiting to be released through lightning strikes. Even as they approached, they could see a jolt of electricity arc down from the clouds into the ocean below, sending out a roaring thunderclap that had Twilight reflexively pressing her ears to her head.
Bandee gulped, though the sound went mostly unheard above the cacophony of the storm. “We’ll be flying through that?” he shouted.
“We don’t have much of a bloody choice!” Coo shouted back.
“The storm’s coverin’ bot’ Cloudy Park an’ Dark Castle, at dis point!” Kine added. “Roundin’ it ain’t an option!”
“Plus, if Dedede’s right about Kracko, we’ll have to deal with him first!” Twilight said.
Dedede couldn’t talk, puffed up as he was, so he just nodded instead.
“Ye think the ol’ thunderhead’s got himself possessed?” Nago asked.
There was another crack of thunder, and those that could raise an eyebrow at Nago did so.
“Fair ‘nough,” he conceded. “That’s gonna be a helluva fight, though.”
“Well, Sunset and Kirby have both fought him–and won!” Twilight said, a ghost of a grin crossing her muzzle.
“Yeah, but Sunset had a Fountain behind her,” Bandana Dee reminded. “And Kirby hasn’t fought him with whatever this darkness is!”
Kirby, for his part, turned around just enough to give Bandee an offended look before resuming his hovering at the front of the group.
“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight declared. “We’ll go in there, we’ll fight the darkness infecting Kracko, and we’ll win. And then we can go give the darkness possessing Spike what for.”
“Let’s get a move-on, then!” Kine impatiently called. “Dat darkness ain’t gonna defeat itself!”
With that, the group plunged into the clouds, leaving the open air behind.
Rarity hummed in thought, tapping a hoof to her chin.
“Whatcha thinkin’, Rarity?” Pinkie asked, popping up behind her seat.
A lesser mare may have jumped out of her fur at that, but years of experience from living in the same town as Pinkie Pie had lent themselves to Rarity maintaining her disposition whenever her friend would suddenly appear from nowhere.
So she only nearly jumped out of her fur.
Composing herself in only a moment, she considered her response. “Why, it seems that Twilight is simply acting quite a bit more confident than usual,” she noted. “Though I suppose that may be due to the…events that have transpired over the past month.”
“Nah, Ah think it might be a bit more than that,” Applejack pitched in. “We’ve gone up against world-endin’ threats before, but Twi’s confidence usually takes a hit partway through.”
“But sometimes that’s on purpose, isn’t it?” Rainbow grumbled a bit, levying a glare at Discord.
The draconequus whistled innocently.
“She’s confident because she has to be,” Cadance suddenly said, everypony’s attention turning to her. “Her only other option is fear.”
“And since that wouldn’t get anything done,” Shining realized, “she’s pushing any fearful feelings aside.”
Discord rolled his eyes and snapped, donning a blue outfit with an insignia pinned to his torso. He lifted his paw, separating his four fingers into two groups. “Oh, of course Twiggles would be the one to logic her way out of emotion.”
“It’s a coping mechanism,” Cadance explained. “Twilight’s always had issues with handling stress, so she latches onto the first solution she thinks of like a lifeline.” She sighed. “I tried to help her out as much as I could back when I foalsat her, and it’s not nearly as bad as it could be, but with how high-stress the current situation is and with their emotions being messed with, holding onto her logic probably is the best solution.”
Fluttershy sighed, her eyes turning back to the screen as the group made their way through the clouds. She winced and ducked down as a rumble of thunder rang out from the screen. “I just hope they can get through this…”
“Blimey!”
Coo nearly dropped Kine as he swerved, dodging the bolt of lightning.
“Youse alright up there?” Kine shouted upward after they stabilized.
“That one nearly took my bloody tail feathers off, but I’ll be fine!” Coo responded.
“We have to keep moving!” Twilight called out. “It’s only going to get worse the closer we get!”
Keeping their forward momentum was easier said than done, however. Progress was slow, as their more mobile fliers were limited to the speeds their slowest could move at. Dedede in particular was lagging behind, the strain of staying afloat for so long visible on his face. Rick was struggling to keep his fire breath going at this point, and Twilight wasn’t sure how long Chuchu could keep holding him up. Hay, the wind and rain was doing a number on her own wings as well.
“We’ven’t much further ta go!” Nago pointed out. “Ah think we’re over land by now, we jus’ wanna aim as close ta the summit as we can!”
Just as he said that, something darted out of the clouds. It was too fast for Twilight to properly see what it was, but a flash of green slammed into Rick before any of them could do anything. Just as fast, it vanished back into the lower cloud layer with a puff of gray cloudstuff.
Rick involuntarily let out a cry of surprise and stopped breathing fire, to which both his and Chuchu’s eyes widened in alarm. Before they could fall far, at least, they were enveloped in a violet glow as Twilight extended her telekinesis to them, much to their relief.
The alicorn grit her teeth and tried to maintain her focus. Between the three creatures she was levitating, their combined mass was nowhere near enough to actually strain her, but that wasn’t her main problem. The physical strain of levitating a living creature generally wasn’t an issue for most unicorns, aside from some large exceptions like the ursas and dragons. No, the problem that Twilight was currently facing came from the mental strain, as living things tended to be squirmy and don’t like staying still, thus taking extra focus to keep in her telekinetic field.
And though Nago had finally started to relax, Rick and Chuchu hadn’t been expecting the levitation and instinctively resisted. Given Chuchu’s eight limbs and the stormy conditions, it was taking most of Twilight’s focus just to keep them in the air.
So she wasn’t really paying attention when the group was suddenly buffeted by even stronger winds. Twilight very, very nearly dropped her passengers as the sudden airflow forced her to close her eyes, but she managed to keep ahold of them.
Taking mental inventory and making absolutely sure that she hadn’t dropped anyone, she cast an eye protection charm and opened her eyes. “We need to land!” she shouted over the nearly-defaning wind.
Coo yelped as what looked like an arrow made of clouds shot up from below and slammed into his right talon. Thankfully it was rather blunt and didn’t manage to pierce into his talon, but it still forced the appendage open. With Kine suddenly losing half of his support, he started dangerously swinging, and the fish winced as Coo’s left talon dug a bit into his flesh to compensate.
“Gah!” he shouted. “Watch it up there!”
Scrambling, Coo’s right talon eventually found purchase back on one of Kine’s fins. “I’ll say!” he yelled back at Twilight, ignoring Kine’s protests of discomfort. “Staying up here hasn’t done us a lick of good!”
Twilight nodded in agreement, not wanting to strain her voice much more.
The air around them started spiraling, the sudden gust sending Kirby slamming into Dedede. Both of them lost their concentration on their puffed up forms, with the two of them and Bandee shouting as they suddenly started falling. At the same time, Twilight felt something hard and fast slam into her back, breaking her concentration and sending her scrambling to right herself and catch everyone again.
A few seconds of frantically applying her telekinesis to everything around her and scrambling to stabilize herself, she finally got a good look at their attacker. At this point, she was desensitized to tiny creatures packing large punches, and found herself somewhat unsurprised that the being giving them so much trouble was a tiny green songbird. The darkness within it, indicated by its beady black eyes, had clearly resisted her panicked telekinetic surge, but had stalled it long enough to disorient it a bit before it dove back into the cloud cover.
Quickly, Twilight looked around and her eyes landed on their only mobile flier left as some semblance of a plan formed in her head. “Gooey, keep it distracted while Coo and I find a place to land! We’ll be back up to help as soon as we can!”
She could only hope that Kirby’s new friend understood enough to work with her.
The green thing suddenly moved to try and attack its new friends again, but Gooey had learned its pattern and dove to intercept it! The dream emotion threat nice purple one had said to distract the green thing, so it would! Any friend of the Voidspawn DREAM EXISTENTIAL THREAT Kirby was a friend of its!
The green thing bounced off of it, giving Gooey a kind of tickling feeling. And wasn’t feeling such a horrifying antithetical wonderful new thing! It could feel all sorts of new things thanks to Kirby, like danger drain dispose happiness! But it could also feel sadness, and failing to protect Kirby and his friends would make Gooey sad.
Gooey was pushed backwards by the spiraling winds, but recovered fast enough to shoot out a dark laser at a cloud arrow that the green thing had shot at it. The green thing was moving quickly, though, and used the distraction to shoot forward at Gooey again. As it bounced off of it for the second time, Gooey considered its feelings.
It could also feel other things’ feelings, too. But the green thing felt empty, just like the big purple one with the bag had been. But it also felt like the green thing was trying to convince Gooey of something? It couldn’t quite tell.
Clearly, whatever it was wasn’t working. Gooey felt the same as normal, so it kept on trying to distract the green thing. It called upon the burning inferno fire ability it had stored and shot forward in a fireball, fighting against the buffeting winds and intense rain as it tried to corral its comrade ally SELF the green thing.
It worked! The green thing, clearly concerned for its own well-being, backed off from trying to reach the ground and attack Kirby and friends. Instead, the green thing looked right at Gooey and let out a screech of desperation return control before dive-bombing it again, this time with darkness pooling into a sharpened beak.
Before the green thing could get close, though, a beam of dream emotion DANGER purple magic shot up and knocked it off course. The nice purple one and the big purple one were back!
“Great job, Gooey!” the nice purple one congratulated it. Satisfaction like that was another new and exciting feeling! “We’ll take it from here!”
“Right on, chapess!” Coo called as he shot his feathers at the green bird. It shot back with a cloud arrow, though Twilight couldn’t exactly see a bow for it. Before it could really get anywhere, though, Gooey intercepted it with a darkness laser before bodily ramming it while coated in fire.
Twilight closed her eyes and focused. She had a three-step plan at the moment, dependent on Gooey and Coo keeping the bird occupied. First, she needed to keep it still. Second was exorcizing the darkness from it. And finally, third was using the Element of Magic to destroy the darkness entirely. On paper, simple.
In practice, it was far from simple. The wind and rain were bad enough to break her concentration often, and the constant cracks of thunder just made it worse. But still, with Coo and Gooey’s help (and the former’s constant shouts of encouragement), she eventually got a good grip on the little bird.
Her eyes flew open, shining violet with her Element as she had to exert more energy than normal to keep the little thing still as the darkness fought against her. But, just like the other bits of darkness they had faced, it could do nothing against the might of the Element of Magic, and it was quickly exorcized and destroyed.
With the fight over, Twilight finally allowed herself to relax a bit as the bird recovered, with Coo having gently caught the tiny thing in his talons. That was tough. Tougher than it should have been against such a small opponent, even with how absurd Popstar had been. It seemed that the darkness was getting desperate.
Good. That meant that they were still on track to saving Spike.
Still, all of the action in the rain meant her wings were probably going to be shot again, at least until they defeated Kracko and got this storm to let up. She had enough left in her to land, but she wasn’t entirely sure of her ability to get back up into the air again in this downpour.
Well, at least the green bird was starting to wake up. Maybe it would have a better lay of the land in Cloudy Park and be able to help them towards the summit?
Quickly, it squirmed out of Coo’s talons (though to be fair to Coo, he didn’t seem to be holding it all that hard) and let out a few panicked breaths while its eyes flicked between the three of them. “Who are y’all and where’s my mama?”
By Celestia’s starry mane.
He sounded younger than Spike.
Applejack chuckled as the group escorted the little green bird, who had eventually introduced himself as Pitch after he calmed down a bit, towards the ground where everyone else was waiting. “The little guy’s got some fight to ‘im!” she noted.
Rarity nodded. “Indeed. Though it is concerning that such a young creature was corrupted by this darkness. Given that it went after Spikey-Wikey too, it seems to have no standards!”
Pinkie pouted. “Yeah, this darkness seems like a really meanie-pants! But I’m sure Twilight can take it!”
Curiously, everypony looked at Rainbow, who had been oddly silent during the fight and the subsequent exchange. “Are you alright, Rainbow?” Cadance asked. “You’re usually more talkative than this.”
Rainbow sighed, a sound that Applejack found almost foreign on her. “It’s just…they have to get by Kracko first. Clouds are tough to deal with, and I hadn’t gotten around to giving Twi proper cloudbusting lessons before she wound up in another universe. And the only reason Sunset beat him was because Marx tricked him.”
Pinkie frowned. “But…there’s more of them, now! They can win!”
Fluttershy let out a bit of a squeak and hid behind her mane as another thunderclap echoed out from the screen. “I hope so,” she whispered, nearly inaudible.
“I hope so too, Shy,” Rainbow grimaced. “I hope so too.”
Pitch, as it turned out, was a wonderful resource in navigating Cloudy Park, even in the intense storm. Twilight just wished he wasn’t so insistent on getting directly involved with everything, because he was talking like he was going to take on Kracko himself. It was a level of bluster in someone so young that reminded Twilight far too much of her brother and his own insistence on helping.
She suppressed a wince at her own thoughts. Pitch was new to the group and not Spike; she couldn’t project her brother onto him just because they shared a few similar traits. That was unhealthy and the fact that she almost fell into it indicated that Twilight needed to have a long talk with her brother after all of this was over.
Still, one of the traits Pitch seemed to share with her brother was his ability to get distracted by random inane parts of conversation. Granted, it was a fault of her own as well, but currently it was a bit annoying, because it led Pitch to be perched on her horn and gibbering inanities directly into her ear.
“...so then Ah told Mama that she needed ta get out more, ‘cause-”
“How close are we to the summit?” Dedede cut in, clearly annoyed with how long this was taking.
“Oh, we’re pretty close!” Pitch answered. “But with the clouds everywhere, Kracko could show up whenever he wa-”
He was cut off a second time by a massive crash of thunder, originating from a flash of lightning that was far too close. Slowly, Twilight looked up at the clouds, her eyes focusing in on one spot of them that was far darker than the surroundings. An eyeball, just like how Sunset had described, but jet black. The darkness had infected the entire thing.
“By the stars…” Bandana Dee whispered, awestruck. And not in a good way.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Kracko had noticed them.
Twilight yelped and quickly raised a shield around the group as the living cloud shot out another bolt of lightning. She grit her teeth as it impacted, and she had to sustain the shield for a solid thirty seconds before Kracko finally let up. Outside of her shield, the storm continued to grow more and more intense, and Twilight desperately began to try and think of any sort of plan.
“I might be able to get together enough magic to blast him all at once and get the darkness out of him!” she shouted. “But it’ll take me a few minutes and I’ll be out of commission for a bit afterwards! Who can distract him?”
Nago looked down at his claws and frowned. “Ah dinnae think Ah’ll be much good against the ol’ stormcloud.”
The other groundbound creatures voiced a similar sentiment.
“Ah can take him!” Pitch proudly declared, receiving deadpan stares from the rest of the group.
Twilight frantically looked around at the others. Chuchu and Rick could fly together, but couldn’t attack like that. They were out. Kine at least had a ranged attack while Coo held him, and Kracko didn’t seem anywhere near as mobile as Pitch was, so the two of them might be able to work together. Bandee and Nago were groundbound. Dedede wasn’t very maneuverable, but he was durable enough to take a few hits, probably.
“Kirby’s fought him before…” Bandana Dee mentioned, and Twilight blinked as her gaze fell upon him and Gooey.
It was so obvious! Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
Twilight gathered up a bit of pure mana and forced it out of her body, forming it into a sphere in front of Kirby. “Copy my magic!” she ordered. “You too, Gooey!”
Kirby did so gladly, discarding his fire copy ability and donning the wizard’s hat her magic gave him. Gooey lashed out with its tongue to do the same, but as soon as it made contact it froze and its eyes went wide.
The danger threat nice purple one Twilight’s magic was unlike anything Gooey had ever felt before. It was happiness and love and friendship and desperation and sorrow and elation and anxiety and anger and hatred and awe and satisfaction and so many other emotions that Gooey had never felt before. It all came in so strong and so fast that for the first time ever Gooey felt pain.
But that pain was replaced by a cooling calmness almost immediately after. Like it…no, he, Gooey decided, like he suddenly understood the universe. The small feelings he had been having about Twilight and Kirby being dangerous were suddenly gone, replaced by the much more prominent feelings of friendship and acceptance.
He felt alive.
He could still feel his body changing to allow him to use this new harmony magic, the darkness he was composed of reacting and adapting and assimilating. It didn’t feel like it would be exactly like how Twilight used it. It was almost distorted in a way, like it was somehow running on both emotions and apathy. Truly, a strange form of power.
He didn’t know a lot about it, of course–the magic or his copying ability. But who could blame him, he wasn’t even a day old! All he knew was that he could use it, and he would use it with Kirby to buy Twilight time to blast the scary cloud thing!
Gooey’s internal realization on the nature of life only took a moment, and before he knew it he and Kirby were charging out of the shield to confront the cloud.
Twilight resigned herself to simply watch as Kirby and Gooey went up and distracted Kracko, strengthening her shield and focusing as much of her attention as she could spare on gathering up her magic for a massive attack. At the very least, allowing them to copy her magic was letting them more effectively combat the darkness within Kracko.
Kirby ran up first, a blue shield forming from his staff to deflect the bolt of lightning sent his way. He lashed out with a laser of his own in return, though Kracko dodged it by parting his clouds in its path. The cloud’s black eye seemed to seep more darkness into itself from the stormclouds around it, before shooting a black beam directly at an unprepared Kirby.
Gooey dove in front of it, though, a shield of his own forming to defend his friend. Curiously, Gooey’s magic was black as well, and Twilight had to suppress a shiver at how similar it looked to Sombra’s magic. It lacked the usual green and purple flair that dark magic had, though, so she didn’t think it was too much cause for concern.
With a blue flash of light, Kirby crossed his arms and teleported, aiming to physically whack Kracko in the eye with his staff. Before he could do anything, though, there was a giant CRACK of thunder as Kirby was struck by lightning and launched towards the ground. The only thing that saved him from impact was timely intervention on Gooey’s part, as Kirby glowed with a black aura around him as Gooey performed what Twilight identified as low-level telekinesis.
Pretty good for someone who had never even used magic before thirty seconds ago, to be honest.
Kirby collapsed to the ground immediately afterward as the levitation failed, though. Gooey lost his concentration when a particularly strong gust of wind blew him through the air. Regardless of the act probably saving Kirby’s copy ability, but Twilight could recognize that even with the two of them they were still outmatched, and she still had at least a minute left to build up charge. Longer if she had to also focus on defending. “Coo, Dedede, get out there!” she barked, opening up a hole in her shield.
The two were out and in the fight before Kracko could capitalize on her weakened defense. She closed her shield just as a bolt of lightning shot out at it, and she had to split her focus for a bit to endure it.
Dedede bounded all the way up to the cloud level in a single leap, bringing his hammer out of hammerspace on the way. He aimed for Kracko’s eye at the apex of his jump, seemingly believing the cloud to have been distracted with Twilight’s shield. Unfortunately, Kracko was capable of multitasking and retreated his eye into the clouds, leaving Dedede to simply swipe his cloud through some water vapor.
The eye reappeared a few meters over, and the only thing that saved Dedede from getting struck by lightning was Coo grabbing him and dodging the shot. Thankfully, it had bought Kirby enough time to get back up and, with a battle cry, he fired a blue beam of magic directly at Kracko’s eye.
Finally, one of their attack’s struck true, and the cloud actually recoiled from the hit. The storm let up a tiny bit, and Twilight grinned. Twenty more seconds, she estimated. “Keep it up!”
Pitch, who had left his perch on Twilight’s horn as soon as it started heating up with the amount of magic she was gathering, pouted from his new perch on Nago’s head. An impressive feat for one with a beak. “Ah wanted to help.”
Nago chuckled. “Ah think you’re a wee bit too small for that one, laddie.”
Outside the shield, it seemed that Kracko had recovered a bit from Kirby’s shot, but his delay let Gooey get into position to fire a laser of his own at the same time as Coo shot some feathers into the clouds and Dedede leapt up for another hammer strike. All of these were aimed at different locations, so when Kracko dodged Gooey’s attack he manifested his eye directly in the path of Coo’s feathers.
By this point, Twilight herself was glowing with magic, streaks of pure mana leaping from her form to the ground. Everyone else in the shield was doing their best to stay away from her, just in case they might break her concentration. It was a nice thought, and worked well for getting them out of the way for when she released it all. And it felt like she had gathered up enough magic to attack, now.
As soon as Kracko began to recover from Coo’s attack, his eye appearing directly above all of them, Twilight allowed herself to grin. “EVERYONE GET DOWN!”
Immediately, everyone within her shield dropped to the ground, while those outside let themselves fall a bit to get out of the line of fire. Twilight dropped her shield and, before Kracko could react, released the magic.
She didn’t notice it, but her wings were spread wide, her eyes’ sclera were glowing the same violet as her magic, she was floating a bit off the ground, and the Element of Magic was so violently bright it hurt the others to look at it directly.
But no one really had time to notice that, because within milliseconds everyone’s vision was overtaken by the sheer magnitude of the magic Twilight released. Empowered by her own desperation to save Spike and her proximity to her Element, she took her performance destroying one of the Halberd’s wings and outdid it by a factor of ten. The column of pure mana speared upward and slammed directly into Kracko’s eye, and the darkness infecting him could do nothing to prevent the harmony magic from spreading throughout the cloud, systematically destroying any fragment it could find keeping the storm powered up.
The eye itself took the brunt of the attack, which almost instantly destroyed the parasite within. The massive amount of heat released also vaporized the surrounding cloud, reducing Kracko to nothing more than a floating eyeball with a few wisps of water vapor around him. Miraculously, he was still conscious, but with the darkness gone and being so weakened, he clearly decided to cut his losses and fled into the sky.
Half a second later, Twilight cut off the stream of magic and fell to the ground, panting. That was the single most powerful attack she had ever performed on her own, and as her mana levels returned to normal she gazed down at her right forehoof. That…that was a lot.
“Holy fucking shit,” Twilight heard Rick mutter behind her, and she couldn’t find it in herself to really disagree. She had known, intellectually, that alicorns were powerful. Especially Princesses Celestia and Luna. Exceedingly so. The former threw around a star like it was made of cardboard and not a nonillion kilograms of superheated plasma.
But this…this was the first time that it really sunk in for her that she was an alicorn too. Sure, she was nowhere near her mentor’s level, or even as strong as Cadance yet, but she’d ascended hardly more than a month ago. And if she was already capable of all this…
Just how strong would she eventually get?
Twilight shook her head. She could worry about that later. Right now she had a brother to save.
Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet, gazing up at the sky as the storm dispersed. The rest of the group followed suit, looking out across the ocean at their final destination.
There, illuminated by the orange of the setting sun, was Dark Castle. The very sight of it sent a shiver down Twilight’s spine. The shadows cast by the massive spires seemed to twist and undulate, as if brought to life by the sickening powers of the darkness. It was an affront to nature itself, Twilight decided. And it didn’t matter that they would be storming the gates at night, or that the day’s events had definitely taken a toll on everyone. It didn’t matter how tired she was, or that she’d probably overdone it a bit with her attack on Kracko.
All that mattered was saving her brother.
Adeline gasped as her vision was suddenly filled with purple, her hiding spot in Cloudy Park giving her a great view of the fight. But before now, she hadn’t cared about it. She had been visiting when the first wave of apathy hit, and hadn’t felt much of anything since. But when the purple horse creature let off that attack, she was suddenly slammed with an influx of emotion. For the first time in hours, Adeline felt inspired.
And since she had her easel with her, she began to paint.
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Heck yeah, a new chapter!
I love this fic, mate, and this chapter certainly delivers
Can't wait for the Darkness' arse to be thoroughly kicked
And good luck with Uni, mate! I know all to well how much time it takes up
Cheers!
Why does this feel like the avengers? They're gathering more allies per chapter.
I wonder if Twilight should've saved that magic for Spike, since she said she be out of commission, sort of. Unless something helps her regen her magic again. Otherwise, its the classic beat-up time Kirby style.
Nice of your to include Meta Knights sword switch in this.... it really was a treat seeing him pull out his old sword when disarmed in forgotten land.
Pointing this out now: if Twilight alone can rival the Star Allies Sparkler in term of power output...
I'm kinda hyped to see what it'll look like along with the Sparkler.
I'm also wondering exactly how the magic of friendship would react to Void Termina, or the Astral Birth. It does seems to mix and coexist here? So maybe We'll get Kirbo (dreamland 1 Kirby) when she tries to blast it.
Alright, the combatants are set!
For freedom! For Friendship!
And most importantly?
For Pony.
Sweet new chapter here, still looking forward to Darkness behind getting kicked out of Spike for good!
Thanks again for getting this chapter out while dealing with your studies!
Holy shrooms. Are we gonna combine all the Dark Matter stories into one for this, or is Adeline's inclusion just a nice cameo?
Adeline?
Now this is a surprise! Didn't expect her until Dreamland 3 (unless you use the theory that Ado is her brother).
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Thank you for your kind words! Uni's been fun by my own standards of fun, but I'm very much looking forward to being done with my undergrad.
11782767
Ah, I probably should have clarified this more in the text itself, but Twilight was only out of commission for ten minutes or so. Between her alicorn physiology and the Element of Magic, she can recover from magic exhaustion extremely quickly.
11782777
Meta Knight is always fun to write, and coming up for a reason for him to switch swords was interesting. Galaxia's history will be more important down the line, too!
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No spoilers, of course, but things are gonna get intense once Star Allies rolls around. It's gonna be fun to write.
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The Darkness doesn't know it yet, but its days are numbered, and that number is zero. It has hours left, at most.
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Adeline being here is mostly a cameo, but it will have some plot ramifications down the line. Particularly in Dream Land 3 and Crystal Shards, since I was planning on consolidating Ado and Adeline into a single character. Though the idea of them being siblings is interesting...and has some nice narrative parallels to some future plans of mine, so I might run with that instead. We'll see once we actually get to DL3.