My Little Fantasy

by GuyWhoWritesThings

Chapter 42: Looking for Diamonds, in All the Wrong Places.

Chapter 42: Looking for Diamonds, in All the Wrong Places.

I really need to stay around alicorns more often. After Twilight and Shining Armor finish getting their armor on, and the ponies opt to give the remaining midnight set to Fluttershy, Princess Luna is able to use her definition of a 'short range teleport' to take us from the library foyer directly to the place I assume is Rambling Rock Ridge. Knowing the teleport is coming doesn't make it any less disorienting, though. I shake my head to clear it and and look up. The morning sun is bright, peeking over the tops of Rambling Rock Ridge's namesake - a large, chaotic-looking face that truly fits the name.

It doesn't take me long to find our area of interest, however. It's not the rock above, but rather, the ground below. Piles of dirt litter the ground, hole after hole dug. Some are filled in with a new pile of dirt, blocking them, but just as many are left open. I know that the diamond dogs live in burrows, but... seriously?

"Pretty much all of these should lead down to the burrows in some way." Twilight explains. "Last time we were here, that's how it seemed to work, anyway." I'm still not quite sure how that golden tiara is staying on properly for her with that helmet, but it seems to be working, somehow.

Applejack gulps. "Now that Ah think about this, though, it's gonna be a mighty bit difficult findin' anythin' down there..."

"We need to figure out how we're going to get down there, first." I reply, looking down one of the holes. It appears to be a straight fall into darkness - not the safest-looking thing in the world. "Can you teleport us down there, Princess?" I ask, turning to the alicorn of the group.

She shakes her head negatively. "Too dangerous, dreamer."

Twilight elaborates before I can ask for the follow-up. "You need a good idea of where you're going to teleport. If Princess Luna were to teleport us all down there blind, we'd most likely end up stuck inside a wall or something."

"Right..." I turn back and move to a different hole, trying to hunt out any differences in how they're dug.

"This place gives me the creeps..." Shining Armor comments as he looks around, scanning the nearby trees and ridges along with Princess Luna as the rest of us try to find a usable way down. "It's way too quiet." I stop and close my eyes, listening for sounds, and aside from the hooves of the ponies around me, he's right. There's... nothing. It's early morning still, but there aren't even any birds. That's never a good sign.

"Over here!" Rainbow Dash calls, waving the rest of us over with a hoof to a hole she's looking at. "This one looks good!"

We all head over, abandoning our current inspections and crowding around. "What's so special about this one?" I ask, looking at it. I've been looking for some kind of diamond dog service tunnel, or something. This just looks like... another hole.

"We slide down it like we did last time, duh." Rainbow Dash replies, rolling her eyes, flying a bit off the ground with her front hooves crossed. Taking a second look into the hole, I do see it's more slanted than the other tunnels. The dogs must use the nails on their paws to dig and climb along these things, if a steep and painful-looking tube-slide is the best thing we're getting to a proper entrance.

Rarity groans at Rainbow Dash's plan. "I'm so glad we skipped out on the hooficures from Aloe and Lotus, now. I can already tell it'll be even worse than the last time those ruffians dragged me down there!"

"Oh, cheer up, Rarity!" Pinkie chimes, poking her head down the hole. "Just think of it like a really long slide! It'll be fun!"

"A really long slide made of rocks and dirt, maybe." She huffs in reply.

"I'll go first." I volunteer, crouching next to the hole as Pinkie pulls her head out. I motion to the large sword resting limply in my right hand. "Between myself and this thing, you probably don't want to risk me landing on top of anyone."

"Right." Shining Armor nods. "I'll be right behind you. We can secure it if there's anything waiting at the bottom while the Princess and the girls come down."

I give him a nod and set one foot into the hole, then the other, using my left hand to stop myself from sliding away while I position myself. I flip the Buster Sword in my hand so the bladed edge is facing away from me as I rest it to my right side, grip firmly on the hilt. It's a tight fit, but it... mostly works. I give everyone around the hole a final look, prepping myself to slide in until I meet a pair of dark violet eyes. Said pair of dark violet eyes smirks.

"Geronimo!" Trixie yells, jumping from her spot across from me and landing squarely on my chest. The impact knocks out my breath and causes me to lose grip with my left hand, sending me on my trip sliding down the tunnel with an unexpected blue companion.

I'm pretty sure my yell of "Goddammit Trixie!" sounds fairly comical to everyone still topside. These is the kind of antics I'd expect from Pinkie Pie, not from her!

"What?" She protests, hooves around my chest, her mane blowing into my face as we both careen down the steep tunnel. "You were taking too long!"

I wrap my now-jobless left arm around her, securing her to my chest in case of any sudden instances of tunnels no longer being tunnels. "So you decide to use me for a sled? This is already dangerous enough as it is!"

"Oh, don't shoot me out of a cannon, Trixie!" She mocks, placing her right hoof to her forehead and taking a tone suspicious close to Rarity. "Oh, don't ride me like a sled down the long, dark tunnel, Trixie!" She places her right hoof back around my chest and gives me an annoyed look. "Is it your job to complain about everything?"

"Yes!" I yell in reply as the tunnel begins to weave, taking one corner after the other. The only good thing is that it seems to be becoming less steep, and not more.

Trixie sticks her tongue out at me, but thinks better of it as the tunnel takes yet another turn, deciding to keep it in her mouth to avoid biting it off. After a bit more sliding, the tunnel opens up into a cavern, us sliding out one of the side walls and plopping onto the cave floor. And by we, I of course mean myself. My unicorn stowaway wriggles herself free from my arm and jumps off, landing on the floor next to me as I pull myself to my feet. I shake my head clear and go to take a look around...

"How can anything live down here when it's so damn dark?" ...But Trixie's beaten me to it. Thanks, Detective Lulamoon, it's dark in a cave. Who would have guessed? "Gah! Times like this, I'd just..." She trails off, grumbling, though I can guess what she's thinking easily enough.

I rest the Buster Sword against my right shoulder, opening my left palm as the green glow of a Materia casts away the darkness around us. That glow is soon replaced with the flickering light of a Fire spell, bouncing orange off the walls and floor as the wispy fireball floats in my palm. The walls and floor aren't smooth by any means, but everything is a bit too... rounded, to be natural. A mine, maybe? It would make sense, given what I've gleaned about these diamond dogs.

"It's a bit spooky down here, huh?" Trixie comments, walking a bit ahead of me. "There are torches up here, but nothing's lit..."

"Get used to it." I reply as I catch up to her, seeing what she means - sticks for torches, placed in mounts along the walls, but with no flame to light them. I move the flame in my palm up to one, sparking it then pulling it from the mount, allowing me to extinguish the Materia-based flame. "If we're right about Jenova being nice and cozy down here, we'll be running across a lot more than unlit torches."

"Yeah..." She stops, turning back to me. The light of my newly-claimed torch glistens in her eyes, reflecting what's probably the final time I'll get to see under her mask. "There's no going back now, is there?"

"Nope." I shake my head. "Not unless you want to try crawling back up that tunnel."

She turns back to the path ahead, taking a few steps forward. "Good."

"Don't go too far ahead." I remind her. "We need to wait for the others."

As if on cue, we hear scraping coming from the tunnel behind us, and Shining Armor is shot out, landing with a grunt on his flanks. "Man, that's a wild ride." He says as he rubs at the side of his head, shaking it. He looks up at us once he's oriented, and lights his horn to add the rose color of his magic to the orange of my torchlight. "So, everything good down here?"

"So far." I reply, leaning against the cave wall. "There's some more of these unlit torches along the wall, but that's it."

"Spooky." He comments, walking forward to join us.

"That's what I said!" Trixie replies, the carry in her voice causing a small echo down the path ahead. "It's also... really stale down here. The air, I mean."

"We're pretty deep underground." Shining Armor says as he walks forward, inspecting the parts of the cave Trixie and I were looking at earlier. "That's pretty normal, but... yeah, it's worse than I thought it'd be."

There's more scraping, and the three of us turn back, just in time to see the pony-equivalent of a six-car pile up. The six Bearers are in a heap, with Pinkie Pie on top of the lot. "That was fun! Let's do it again!"

"Let's... not, Pinkie." Twilight groans, trying to struggle her way out from under her friends. She quickly gives that up, and instead lights her horn, using her magic to pull apart the pony pile so each of them can shake off and get oriented.

"This place wasn't so dark when those ruffians brought me down here." Rarity comments as her and Twilight Sparkle both light their horns, raspberry and light blue mixing into our existing orange and rose lights.

"It looks empty, though..." Fluttershy says, eyes darting around as the six ponies reach us.

"Spooky!" Pinkie Pie bounces down the tunnel ahead of us, turning around once she reaches the edge of our lights, grinning. "Whose ready for some caving?"

No one gets the chance to answer her question, as we hear the last expected set of tunnel-scraping, and Princess Luna is tossed out of its mouth, unceremoniously landing on her ass on the cave floor. She, however, doesn't seem to need any time to get oriented again, immediately getting up to her hooves. "Ah, that was quite exhiliarating!"

"I know, right!" Pinkie waves at her, still grinning.

I give the Princess a sidelong glance as her horn glows, and midnight joins our mix of lights. "I swear, if you call this place spooky..."

"Tis nothing 'spooky' about this place, dreamer." The Princecss says as she walks forward, our group reforming itself. "We believe the modern vernacular for Our feelings of this place would be... 'homey'." She says with a grin and I shrug, shaking my head.

We head forward, Shining Armor taking the initiative to decide the group formation. I'm leading, with Twilight and her friends behind me, while Princess Luna and Shining Armor take up the rear. The only one not following his plan is Trixie - a big surprise - who is walking slightly ahead of me. Despite our initial banter, a tense silence has fallen over our group as we navigate the cave. The colors of our hornlights and torch bounce off the walls and ceiling as we progress, blending together in a swirl of color that's reflected in the Buster Sword's blade. Princess Luna was right in her description before - the Starmetal reflects the light beautifully, bright colors blending together, interrupted only by the single strip of bronze, the Materia inside it twinking in the lights in their own way.

"Hey." Trixie stops, causing our party to halt. It doesn't take us long to see why. "Guess this is the fun part of the caving, Pinkie?"

"Yup!" Pinkie affirms cheerily as we look down a split of branched paths, tunnels twisting off our current path in at least four new directions. It seems the diamond dogs had more than a cave network going - they had a cave maze, if this first split is indicative of anything.

"Any idea where we go from here?" I ask, to no one in particular.

"Yes." Princess Luna answers. "The diamond dogs We interrogated back in Canterlot revealed to Us that Beethoven kept his 'prize' with the diamond dogs' treasure horde."

"...And how do we find that?" I don't see how knowing it's possibly in with their treasure horde helps if we have no idea where the treasure horde is.

"Oh, oh! Pick me, pick me!" Pinkie hops up and down, her right hoof raised excitedly as she grins. I give her a nod, not knowing quite what insanity to expect from her, and she starts speaking. "When Rarity was taken by those mean old diamond doody heads, we had Twilight use a gem finding spell because we figured Rarity would be near a big pile of gems since they took her to help hunt for them! So we just have Rarity use it now and look for the biggest pile of gems they've got!" ...I'm not sure what's happening. Pinkie Pie just came up with a sane, coherent, and usable plan.

"Excellent idea, darling!" Rarity closes her eyes, her horn staying aglow but the blue tint disappearing from our mix of lights. Instead, spots on the ground begin glowing in her magical aura, and the outline of the gems beneath the surface becomes visible. A quick look to the Buster Sword shows the Materia along it highlighted in blue, and the lapels and left sleeve of Trixie's coat are also glowing.

"Oh, that's neat!" Twilight moves in front of Trixie, looking over her glowing bits, clearly impressed with her friend's spell. "That spell even detects Materia, Rarity!"

"It's quite nice, isn't it?" Rarity grins proudly. "I may not be a magic efficionado like you, Twilight, but the few spells I do have, I don't cut corners on."

"Looks like Twilight was right about you, Rarity." Trixie says, turning down the tunnel that seems to have the largest concentration of gems, her voice taking on that distant tone.

"What do you mean, dear?" Rarity asks as the rest of us begin filing into the new tunnel forward, using our previous party arrangement.

"Trixie, I-" Twilight starts, but is quickly cut off.

Trixie speaks, talking over Twilight, though she doesn't turn to face either unicorn, instead keeping her gaze locked on the path ahead. "When we took the train to Canterlot, Twilight and I spoke of a few things. It simply came up in conversation that she thought you could have been an excellent magician had you not chosen to pursue fashion, is all." Her voice betrays the unspoken part of that sentence, the you could have been a far better magician than I ever was.

"Ah, well..." The measured tone in Rarity's own voice shows she, at least, picked up on it. "I'm flattered, really, but magical study like you and Twilight are into never clicked well with me. I'd have never gotten that far in it. These spells only work so well because they're part of my passion, you see."

"I see..." I see Trixie's head nod absently as her voice trails off, letting the conversation hang.

We keep walking, the tunnel opening up to the cave system at large. A stone bridge extends from the opening of the cavern behind us, to one directly across, a deep chasm beneath us. The lights of our group's torch and horns dance along the stalactites and outcroppings of the ceiling above us, but fail to reach the walls or the floor. How massive is this place?

"This way, everypony." Rarity turns her head to the left as we reach the far side of the bridge, instead eyeing a precarious path down the side of the wall. Looking at it, I'm not entirely sure how a pony would traverse something that thin without flying. Without being able to sheathe the Buster Sword, I'm not sure I'll be able to traverse it, either. Claw marks line the foot path and the wall it's against, leaving a clear hint on how the diamond dogs traversed it, at least. Rarity raises her hoof, pointing to the outcropping that path leads toward, a spacious platform with a more reasonably sized slope that leads deeper downward. "I think... we need to go this way."

"Can the Princess teleport us again?" I ask, after a quick scan of the faces in our group makes me think my assumption of them not being able to cross that ledge to be correct.

"We could." The Princess confirms. "However, to teleport you, Our eight ponies, and Ourself is quite a magical exertion, even if Our previous usage made you believe elsewise. It is power We would prefer to keep to fight the creature, if possible."

"Then it looks like this is a job for The Great and Powerful Trixie!" Trixie grins as she steps forward, reaching the ledge of our bridge and staring across the gap. Her declaration echoes through the cavern, causing her name to repeat back to us enough times that, at an earlier time, I would've mistaken it for her ego's air pump.

Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes. "I thought you didn't do the third-pony thing anymore, Trix?"

"Oh, hush!" She fires back, shooting Rainbow Dash a glare before turning back to the gap in front of us. "Watch, and be amazed!" She closes her eyes, and after a moment, her body becomes surrounded by the telltale green wisps of Materia magic. They extend out as two strings of magic, swirling together like a wide double-helix. They start at the ledge in front of Trixie, slowly making their way down to the lower ledge identified by Rarity, a path of ice forming between them, soon bridging the two areas together. For now, at least. She looks at her work and gives a smug grin. "How's that?"

"Oh, neato! It's an ice slide!" Pinkie praises as she pushes forward to get a better look at it. "Looks fun!"

"A slide, huh?" Trixie turns from Pinkie to her creation. "I suppose it is. Let's try it!" Trixie sits at the base of the 'slide' and pushes herself off, quickly crossing the gap with the ice.

"Woo-hoo!" Pinkie bounds to the front and jumps into the slide, front hooves waving in the air as she follows Trixie's lead.

"That's dangerous, you two!" Shining Armor yells across as Pinkie clears the chasm, both mares getting to their feet on the other side.

"Yeah, sister!" Pinkie says with a grin as her and Trixie share a hoof-bump.

"It's okay, Shining." Rainbow Dash takes to the air, hovering beside the 'slide'. "I'll make sure no one falls."

"Right..." He mutters as Applejack takes the trip across the slide.

Each of the girls crosses in turn, followed by Shining Armor. His time crossing, however, leaves cracks in the ice due to his added weight and previous six ponies' worth of strain. Which is why...

"Luna..." I mutter, looking at her as she sits at the base of the slide. "...Why?"

"Is it so strange for Us to take enjoyment in things like a normal pony?"

I shake my head as she pushes herself down the slide, but the sound of added cracks pulls my attention back to her quickly. As she slides, the ice behind her is breaking, falling into the chasms below. Good news, I don't need to slide across like a child. Bad news, I can't really get across now at all. Great. The Princess crosses safely and gets to her feet, giggling with Pinkie as Trixie approaches the ledge on her side.

"Think you can make another one?" I yell across, decided sliding across like a child is preferrable to trying to walk the ledge to my right.

"Just jump it, you big baby!" She yells back. Jump it? Is she nuts? "You used to clear stuff like this easily, didn't you?"

She's not entirely wrong, thinking on it. Were I still in Gaia, were I still... this wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that I'm not, and that situation has me weaker. Although, maybe... "Yeah, I got it!" I yell back across.

The ponies on the other ledge back up, leaving me some room as I try to give myself some room to run. With a running start, and the Time Materia, I might be able to clear it. I cast the Haste spell before I can consider backing out, and my feet get running, kicking off against the ledge, Buster Sword gripped tightly in the right hand and torch in the left. I can hear Rainbow Dash's wingflaps behind me, clearly ready to try and pull a recovery when this plan goes belly-up. The lower ledge, and in turn, the ground, gets closer with each second, and it looks like I might actually make it. Almost...

I toss the torch from my left hand, reaching forward and grabbing the far ledge as the rest of my body smacks into it. I can feel the rock strain slightly under my fingers, as my face lets me know how much it doesn't appreciate being impacted into the side of a cliff. The important part, though, is... "Hey, look at that. I made it."

I can't help but give a small grin as I feel Rainbow Dash's hooves under my arms, and the pull of magic around my left hand as it glows a mix of raspberry and midnight. After I set my feet down on the outcropping with everyone else, I look down at Trixie, and we share grins, me passing her a thumbs up with my now-free left hand. A certain lavender mare, however, isn't amused.

"Cloud, remember what I said in Canterlot?" She asks, deadpan, causing both myself and Trixie to turn to her. "I've reassessed it some. You're both idiots."

"Let's get going." Shining Armor says, his tone making it clear it's time for business, as Twilight and Luna's hornlights rejoin his in lighting our path. "Straight down, right, Rarity?" He asks, pointing a hoof into the depths of the cave. Far beyond our light, we can see a particularly large cluster being revealed by Rarity's gem-finding spell.

"Yeah. That's the biggest one I'm seeing." She replies with a nod, and we continue our descent.

Princess Luna has replaced Trixie at the front as we descend, her horn lighting the way down a mix of winding paths and hops between ridges. The more we descend, the more I realize just how completely unsurvivable a miss on that jump I made likely would've been. The distance between the ceiling and the cave floor has to be at least a hundred feet - probably more, as it's hitting the size where guestimation really isn't reliable. After finally reaching the floor level, we continue forward, along one of the walls. Though, soon, the walls start looking less like walls...

"Hey..." Twilight looks up along the wall, examining it. "These look like buildings carved into the side of the cave."

"Are you surprised, Miss Sparkle?" Princess Luna asks from the front. "Regardless of what your previous encounter with them may make you believe, the diamond dogs are a race with their own country. It is not surprising they would have housing, as well."

"I knew that, Princess, but," she continues looking along the walls, trying to peek into whatever windows or door frames she can without causing us to stop, "it's just, seeing it up close like this... it's so different from what you'd see in Equestria."

"And empty." I add, having taken some glances through the windows myself, and extrapolating from my previous experience. "Jenova's definitely been here."

Rainbow Dash gulps. "You mean, it... took them?"

"Yes." I nod. "Most likely. Either that or they were smart enough to run before it could."

"This is it... I think." Rarity says, causing us to stop in front of one of the buildings.

"A diamond dog banking facility." Princess Luna says, looking up at the building before us. "Of course." Its a larger building, with two tall, wooden doors - an unusual feature, considering most of the door frames and windows of the houses were devoid of wood and glass. Tall stairs and statues of diamond dogs lead up to said door, and above it is a sign in a language I can only guess is native to the diamond dogs. Even without being able to read it, its clear this building holds added import, and it seems Princess Luna has the reading part covered for us.

It's then that the doors of the bank burst open without warning, a creature launching at us from the darkness inside! Shining Armor and Princess Luna both prove quicker to the draw than I am, the former using a bubble shield to block the creature, filling the cave with the sounds of nails scraping on glass as his shield seems to effortlessly block its attack. Princess Luna quickly follows up, wrapping the creature in her magic and pinning it to the ground as it snarls and barks. We move in for a closer look, Twilight and Rarity using hornlight to reveal it in the darkness, and...

The creature struggling and snarling in Princess Luna's grip is best described as a chimera. A sick, demented chimera. It has the torso, wings, and legs of a bat-pony - one that bears the clear signs of fighting for its life back when it was still alive. Its tail is missing, and the flesh of its flank is tattered, leaving its cutie mark barely discernable. The front legs and head of the bat-pony are gone as well. In place of the front legs are a pair of the lumbering, muscular arms of a diamond dog, attached awkwardly into the pony's shoulders to give them proper mobility as they continue flailing in the Princess' grasp, their length slightly asymmetrical. The head snarls, drooling and barking as it stares at us with lifeless eyes, taken from a diamond dog as well. However, even in the multi-color hornlight, it's easy to see that the furs of the two arms and head don't match. Jenova clearly plucked the parts it desired from three different diamond dogs, like some sick science experiment. Its work is marked as its own by bits of its signature, sickly-blue flesh, applied almost like an adhesive to keep the diamond dog and pony parts connected together.

"This is..." Fluttershy mutters, taking a step backwards. "How horrible..."

"Ah think I'm gunna hurl..." Applejack mutters, gulping in a clear attempt to prevent that outcome.

"This is why the houses were empty..." Twilight mutters, collapsing onto her flank. "This thing... how...?"

I take a firm grip on my Buster Sword with both hands, though I leave it resting on my right shoulder. "Everywhere will be like this if we don't kill Jenova before it recovers."

Princess Luna looks down at the flailing creature before her. The color of her magic becomes more intense, as do its struggles, but after a short time, its eyes go wide and its body flops limply against the ground. She's clearly killed it with her magic, and I'm not sure I want to know the details on how. She sighs as she releases her magical grip, closing her eyes for a moment. "We art sorry thy hast met this fate, Evening Breeze." She says solemnly, slipping into older tongue, before her voice fills with anger. "To create such an abomination from one of Our Night Guard... the creature shall meet a true reckoning at Our hooves."

"Will I?" A shrill, female voice asks from behind us. We turn, and the speaker's teal, cat-like eyes greet us through the darkness, a star-speckled mane twinking despite the darkness around it. The rest of its body is framed by wispy, green threads of light behind it - the telltale light of Lifestream - and I recognize it as the alicorn form Jenova took briefly at the Ghastly Gorge. Its wings are spread wide, head raised, clearly taking pleasure in making itself looking large and intimidating. It's standing on the edge of a cliff we hadn't noticed due to our focus on the buildings - the wisps of Lifestream clearly coming from further below.

"Nightmare Moon..." Twilight mutters as I grip the Buster Sword, not delaying in taking up a fighting stance. The ponies around me don't delay, either - horns glowing, hooves digging into the dirt, and one particular blue pegasus taking to the air slightly above us.

Well, they don't delay, except for one. "I thought you were Nightmare Moon, though, Princess Luna?" Pinkie Pie asks, pointing a hoof between the Princess at our side and the alicorn across from us. "How can she be there if you're here?"

"It's just a ghost created by Jenova." I explain. "Somehow, it can read memories, and it takes pleasure in tormenting you before it kills you. This is just another one of its games."

"Oh!" Pinkie turns a stink-eye toward the fascimile of Nightmare Moon and digs her hooves into the ground as well. "Well that's not very nice! Let's kick its butt!"

"We hope thee have enjoyed thine time on Our planet, creature," Princess Luna steps forward, her voice firm and aggressive, "for it shall expire soon, along with thyself."

"Have you already forgotten our last encounter, Princess Luna of Equestria, Mistress of the Night, Moon, and Stars?" It jeers in reply, a wide grin displaying its fangs as its eyes narrow.

"I remember you losing last time." I answer its mocking before Princess Luna can, stepping forward along with Shining Armor to stand next to her. "And you're even more outgunned than last time."

It snorts, throwing its head back and letting out a shoulder-shaking laugh, the kind I would expect from Sephiroth, each cackle bouncing and echoing off the walls of the cave, before turning back down and meeting my eyes. "My numbers are the ones that are greater this time. Leave it to a vessel to not know how to count!"

"What do you-" I start, but Princess Luna cuts me off.

"One score of Night Guards..." Princess Luna's voice quakes in anger. "Thee shall know a torment far greater than Tartarus could dream to give, creature."

Its wings beat once in reply, and from the cliff behind it rise forms that, even in the dim light of the Lifestream wisps and assorted horns, are clearly more like the creature behind us. Their limbs and heads hang limp, like puppets being held up by their strings. Some sport the helmets, shields, and spears I remember being wielded by the diamond dogs the time I encountered them in Ponyville, while others have nothing but their claws and teeth. A score... twenty. Twenty Night Guards. Minus the one behind us, that must leave nineteen of them floating behind 'Nightmare Moon' like marionettes. It steps forward, eyes narrowing, the mirth of its mocking and jeering disappearing.

"This cave shall be your grave, fools." It states, before its mouth breaks out into a grin, dripping with malice, fangs bared once more. "Though, if its any consolation, I'll be sure it's only your spirits that make this their final resting place."

Comments

[the other sans]

trying to peak into whatever windows

1. Peek.

[GuyWhoWritesThings]

7100902
Damn homophones!

7100622
Sounds like somebody doesn't like Magic Duel much!

(I don't blame you, I don't either.)

[Black_Knight]

Are we aiming the final showdown?

Anyway seems Trixie, Pinkie and Luna decided to have some last fun antics before the boss fight. Was the Geronimo intended to be a Doctor Who reference or just as it is?

Also

"A really long slide made of rocks and dirty, maybe." She huffs in reply.

dirt

[strangephantasm]

This cave shall be your grave, fools.

Sorry Jenova... the brave do not fear the cave. I mean, grave.

vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/2/2a/Battlesquare-ffvii-floor.png/revision/latest?cb=20111129000309

[GuyWhoWritesThings]

7101412
I forgot that the 11th Doctor liked to use "Geronimo!" a lot. It wasn't intended to reference him, though.

7102135
Damn, I wish I would've thought to reference that, lol. It's probably better I didn't, but my affinity for terrible jokes is strong.

[RTStephens]

I've noticed that Trixie has really lightened up these past few chapters. I suppose with the injury she's sustained and the prospect of certain death looming, she's decided to get the most out of life. It's strange to see but make sense given what she's been through.

The final showdown? Looking forward to it!

[GuyWhoWritesThings]

7102315
Writing for Trixie has become quite interesting, given she's currently such a damaged and complicated character and I'm locked into Cloud's perspective, with neither of them being particularly open about their feelings. It's been interesting trying to communicate the state of her character mainly through gestures, behaviour changes, and veiled dialogue, and see how it gets interpreted vs. what I actually have in mind for her. (It's interesting both in the sense in seeing what theories people come up with and in seeing how accurately I'm portraying what I want to be portraying.)

Here's hoping I can make the big burrow expedition worth all the buildup it's been getting!