Blue Blur In Equestria

by DKN117

Temple

The entire group reappeared on the old, worn stone path that led to the old castle at the center of Everfree Forest. It didn’t take them long to reach the castle, nor to notice that the castle and its immediate surroundings were now so saturated with magic that they could almost see it. As they approached the tall double-doors that led into the structure, pushed them open, and headed inside, something became immediately apparent: the castle had, at some point recently, been hit by a seriously powerful “bigger on the inside” charm. The ceiling looked to be nearly a thousand feet above their heads, the walls were nearly as wide apart in both directions, and the path ahead of them looked as if it stretched on for around half a mile. In addition, there seemed to have been some cross-dimensional contamination, as terrain of grass, sand, trees, and rock formations was visible in varying mixes along the whole way. Lastly, there were a significant number of Nightmare’s shadow-demons between them and their eventual destination (which at the moment was too far away to be seen).

(LEVEL MUSIC: Sonic 2006 – “Kingdom Valley – Wind”)

“Welp,” Sonic said, “better get started.”

And with that, he rushed in, using Homing Attacks to down the three shadow-demons who were rushing in to meet the group, and then started moving on. The rest of the group soon followed, Twilight and Trixie firing blasts/beams of offensive magic at some small and speedy enemies that tried to rush them, while Rouge, Tails, and Cream intercepted a squadron of six airborne shadow-demons that tried to attack the group from above and behind, sending them all crashing down to the ground to be finished off by the ground-bounders (if they survived the impact, that is). Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy took out another group of flyers coming from the front, while Shadow and Silver fended off surprise attacks from the left and right, respectively.

Omega took the lead for the next few minutes, his machineguns blazing as he cut down a horde of small, weak enemies, with Shadow, Applejack, and Amy getting the few that came from outside his line of fire. One large, ogre-like demon coming from the right went down via a green fireball to the face form Spike, while a gargoyle-esque monster on the left was turned to stone and then shattered by Rarity. Pinkie and Knuckles foiled an attempt by a pack of burrowing enemies to get the drop on the ground (having sensed them through his innate sixth sense for subterranean stuff and her Pinkie Sense), enjoying a very quick impromptu game of “Whack-A-Demon” (Knuckles won). Kunai and shuriken from Espio cut down another pack of flyers, while Charmy stuck close to Tails & Cream to assist them and Vector joined Omega at the front, punching and crushing any hostiles that got close enough.

As the group made their way over a sand dune, a pack of shadow-demons came in from all directions. Rarity simply tapped into her affinity and channeled her magic into the ground, making the sand reach up, grab hold of the demons, pull them under, and crush them, clearing the way. At the other side, Knuckles, Sonic, & Tails took “power formation” and bulldozed through a pack of armored shadow-demons, while Shadow and Rouge took out (via Thunder Shoot) another half-dozen flyers. Cream and Fluttershy took position overhead and called out targets for Amy, Applejack, and Espio to take out, while Rainbow Dash and Vector double-teamed a particularly large shadow-demon, bringing it down with little difficulty.

The next several minutes were somewhat lighter on enemies, and the group could soon see a set of large, wooden double doors that likely lead to the next area. As they approached, a pack of wolf-life shadow-demons appeared to bar their path. Trixie and Dash charged in first, taking down several, while Rouge and Silver cut down more, and Amy used her hammer to take down the last two. The way clear, they approached the doors and shoved them open.

(LEVEL MUSIC: Sonic 2006 – “Kingdom Valley – The Castle”)

Another hall stretched out, this one with less cross-dimensional contamination than the first one. Debris and plant life seemed to have been magically enlarged to form a maze through the majority of the hall with three entrances, and giant stained-glass murals dominated the thousand-foot walls on either side of the hall.

“Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight ordered, “get up high and guide us from above. Our Harmony Elements should let us communicate telepathically, and we five down here can relay the info the Sonic’s group.”

“Right!” the two pegasi said at once, and took off into the air, flying a few hundred feet up and taking position over the group.

Following Rainbow Dash’s direction, the group took the right-most entrance to the maze. A few turns and about 40 seconds in, they were ambushed by a pair of shadow-demons who took the form of huge spiders. Omega used his flamethrowers to incinerate one, while Twilight used a concussive blast spell to stun the other long enough for Amy to bash its head in with her hammer. A little ways on, Fluttershy alerted the group to a pack of corrupted Timber-Wolves approaching from around the next corner, and Espio threw a hail of kunai at just the right moment, taking down all but two, which were both quickly dealt with by Shadow.

Fluttershy continued to guide them for a few minutes from on high, Sonic taking the lead and dealing with several lesser demons that got in their way. Fluttershy then had to take sudden evasive maneuvers, as a quartet of aerial shadow-demons flew at her in attack formation. She gathered her wits and steeled herself, dodging the first three and lashing out at the fourth, the demon’s momentum and Fluttershy’s strength combining to one-shot the thing, sending its body plummeting to the ground below. Two more were taken down in a single pass by Rainbow Dash, who then returned her focus to guiding the ground team. The last one charged Fluttershy, who deftly maneuvered out of the way, lashing out with her tail at the demon’s eyes, stunning it and leaving it vulnerable to a series of high-strength blows to the head, neck, and upper back that sent it tumbling down.

Dash and Fluttershy guided the ground team through a particularly complex, almost spider web-like patch of the maze, and on the other side of it they encountered a pair of large, brutish, cyclopean shadow-demons, one carrying a spiked club and the other a huge crossbow. The latter fired, and everyone dodged, nearly learning the hard way that the arrows were explosive-tipped. Sonic rushed the crossbow-wielder, dodging another shot and leaping up for a Homing Attack that mainly just pissed the thing off. Trixie, Lightning Aura active, moved to assist, while Knuckles and Applejack headed for the club-wielder. A well-placed summoned lightning bolt from Trixie blew apart the crossbow and numbed the arm of the demon wielding it, and Sonic then unleashed a rising chain of Homing Attacks that ended with the blow to the thing’s head, sending it toppling backwards and dissipating into raw particles of mana and darkness. At the same time, Applejack took out one of the legs of the other giant, forcing it to kneel to the ground, where Knuckles yanked the club out of its grasp and bashed its head in with it, destroying it as well.

After several more minutes, the group finally reached the end of the maze and the other end of the supersized hall. The massive doors were pushed open as Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash rejoined the group.

(LEVEL MUSIC: Sonic 2006 – “Kingdom Valley – Lakeside”)

The doors swung open to reveal an up-sized spiral staircase that led up for what looked like well over 500 feet (straight up, not measuring the amount of distance walking/climbing), with the spiraling pathway about nine feet wide.

“And they couldn’t bother to put some elevators in this place?” Sonic joked.

“Even if they did,” Rarity replied, “would you want to risk Nightmare’s forces cutting the elevator cables mid-transit?”

“…Good point.”

With that, the group started their climb. Thankfully, while the spiral stairway had been supersized, the stair-steps themselves had not. About halfway up the stairway, a group of Nightmare’s shadow-demons finally showed themselves, having been clinging to the walls and waiting in ambush position. Cream and Tails spotted them, but the monsters leapt into attack before either of them could shout out a warning. Fortunately, everyone was already on high alert, and thus reacted quickly. Rouge fired Shadow and Omega with Thunder Shoot, taking out roughly half of the enemies within the first several seconds. Pinkie and Amy stepped up, using the former’s earth-pony-style near-super strength and the latter’s magic hammer to strike down several more that tried to rush them. Beam-bolts of raw offensive magic from the three unicorns cut down most of the rest, and the few remaining were dealt with by Sonic and Espio.

Near the top of the stairway, a large, club-wielding shadow-demon came down at the heroes. Knuckles and Vector charged it, dodging an attempt to smash them into a wall and striking with several crushingly-powerful physical blows. It ended when the two tossed the badly-wounded giant clear over the rest of the group; it landed head-first on the stairs behind/below them and proceeded to tumble end over end down the entire stairway.

The group soon reached the top, coming across the old throne room, where Twilight and her friends had fought Nightmare Moon nearly a year ago; this room was, like all the others, super-sized, now nearly a mile from one end to the other, with a few fallen pillars forming obstructions here & there, and in the distance was the (surprisingly normal-sized) old altar/throne where the inactive Harmony Elements had once sat. Between the group and the other end of the room were a horde of shadow-demons of various forms and sizes. A green flash accompanied Silver unleashing a psychic shockwave that picked up about a dozen that tried to charge the group, and then telekinetically slammed them down into the floor, destroying them.

Sonic, Shadow, and Twilight led the charge, the black hedgehog removing one of his two gold-bracelet power limiters, causing his body to surge with a wavering red aura as his power level increased by 50%. As the rest of the group followed in their wake, the shadow-demons broke against them like waves against rocks, attacks from the heroes cutting down swathes of demons. Fire blasts from Twilight and Spike, water bullets and stone spears from Rarity, bolts and beasts of lightning from Trixie, machinegun rounds and rockets from Omega, telekinetic projectiles and shockwaves from Silver, and physical blows from everybody else – all quickly proved the superiority of quality over quantity. Fluttershy and Cream combined straight-up attacks with feints to trick shadow-demons into blasting each other, Pinkie weaponized her Party Cannon to surprising effect, Knuckles and Applejack double-teamed a group of large and burly enemies, and Sonic & Shadow effortlessly carved through dozens and dozens of basic foot-soldiers.

After nearly six minutes of this, the group finally reached the other side of the now-emptied room… and found a wall. This was not a problem for very long, as Knuckles walked up to it, knocked on it a few times with his ear up against it, and then wound up a punch that knocked the wall down, revealing another passageway. Suddenly, Omega spoke up.

“Alert” he said. “Automated security measures in action. The doors to the subterranean chamber we seek will close in approximately 255 seconds.”

“We’ll never make it there in time!” Applejack cried.

“Sonic, Shadow, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, “you three have to get moving at top speed! Once you’re there, I’ll home in on your Chaos Emeralds’ and Harmony Elements’ energy signatures and teleport the rest of us there. Get going now!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Sonic said, and he, his dark-furred counterpart, and the prismatic pegasus took off down the passage, quickly building their legendary speed.

(LEVEL MUSIC: Sonic 2006 – “Kingdom Valley – Water”)

They tore down the passageway, the ground buckling beneath the two hedgehogs’ feet as they blazed along at around 400 miles per hour, Rainbow Dash easily keeping pace about six feet off the ground. A few shadow-demons in their paths were cut down in a flash, the trio acting as large high-speed projectiles that literally punched clean through the enemies in their way, not giving the nearby surviving demons time to react. A gradual curve/turn to the right led to a sudden 45-degree descent for several hundred feet, down to a subterranean level of the castle. This descent gave the trio a diving speed boost that they kept upon emerging from the other end in a long, cavernous chamber with a straight road/path down the center that they raced along. In the distance, at the very edge of their enhanced vision, a set of gigantic doors was very slowly closing.

“We’re not gonna make it at this speed!” Shadow said.

“Well then, let’s take it to the max!” Sonic replied.

Sonic, Shadow, and Rainbow Dash poured more power into their speed, going faster and faster. Soon, three vapor cones were forming around them, their bodies straining to hit the limit. Before long, there were three thunderous cracks/bangs accompanied by three expanding rings of light – one blue, one red, and one seven-colored. Sonic & Shadow’s legs were indistinct blurs, the two leaving afterimages – one blue and one red – in their wakes that accompanied the prismatic one left by Dash. All they could hear was the air rushing past them. Each of them went even faster, soon topping 1,000 miles per hour. The door, slowly but surely, finally closed… three seconds after the trio had already made it through.

(LEVEL MUSIC END)

As the speed trio finally returned to subsonic speeds and then slowed to a stop, a flash of purple light accompanied Twilight teleporting herself and the rest of the group to their location. After the three caught their breath, Twilight reached out with her magic.

“The nexus isn’t too far from here” she said. “This way.”

The group moved, walking now, advancing through the dark and quiet chamber, not an enemy in sight. After a short while, they came upon a large stained-glass mural. It depicted several alicorns, each bearing a different symbol.

“A tarot motif…” Trixie said in recognition. “I see The Chariot, The Hanged Stallion, The Tower, The High Priestess…”

“Look at The Sun and The Moon” Twilight said, pointing to the indicated alicorn figures. “It’s Celestia and Luna! And Cadence, in the position of ‘Temperance’! And ‘Death’… Mortis… Legends say he is the Alicorn Spirit of Death, who guides the souls of the righteous to Paradise and the souls of the ‘gray’ to Purgatory… as well as dragging the souls of the wicked to Hell. Of course, he rarely directly guides such souls; usually he leaves that to his thousands of children, the Thestrals, pony-like spirits that can only be seen by the dead or by living ponies who have seen someone die.”

“And look at the bottom” Trixie said. “There’s The Devil.”

“Legends say he rebelled against his siblings and parents,” Twilight said, “and because they could not kill him, for he was, like them, immortal, they instead sealed him inside a star.”

“Where’s the Magician Alicorn?” Trixie asked.

“…I don’t know…” Twilight replied. “It looks like that spot is blank… Intentionally so…”

“Look at the two big, featureless ones near the top” Pinkie said.

“They’re bearing the symbols of The Hierophant and The World” Trixie said. “Judging by the muzzle shapes of those silhouettes, The Hierophant is a stallion and The World is a mare.”

“I remember…” Twilight whispered. “Celestia’s story she told me once, when I was a filly… Ouranos and Fauna… The All-Father and All-Mother…”

“Maybe there’s some truth to the legends” Amy said. “Maybe the Princesses have some family out there somewhere that they haven’t told anyone about…”

Twilight slowly walked up to the mural. Slowly, gently, she reached her left fore-hoof out and touched the empty spot where The Magician would go. In response, something unseen shifted, and a glowing pathway lit up along the floor, leading around the mural and to a large and wide empty spot. There was an ethereal glow, and the planetary nexus revealed itself, a massive circular rune of glowing light.

“Well, that was easy enough” Rouge said.

As if in response to Rouge’s comment, a roar resounded through the area. In the center of the chamber, a ball of golden and violet light formed floating above the nexus. It expanded, taking form as a long, serpentine being.

“Never mind” Rouge said sheepishly.

(BOSS MUSIC: Super Smash Bros. Brawl – “Boss Theme 1”)

The creature that formed was about 30-40 feet long, with four comparatively-small limbs on its long, serpentine body. Its scales were violet and faded gold, and its eyes glowed red. At first the ponies thought they were seeing another of Discord’s kind, but the creature’s body parts were far too uniform to be that. It soon became apparent they were looking at a twisted, corrupted imitation of an Eastern Dragon made by Nightmare. It roared at them, whorls of yellow flame twisting around its fangs as it did, its antler-like horns crackling with magical energy. Its eyes flashed, and Sonic, Twilight, and Silver found themselves pulled forward by an unknown force, phasing through a barrier that was quickly discovered to not let others through, nor let the trio out.

The dragon let loose a torrent of yellow fire at them, and Silver & Twilight both called up a barrier, hers over his. As the flames hit, they corroded through Twilight’s barrier like acid while leaving Silver’s strained but intact.

“Acidic fire?!” Sonic said.

“No” Twilight replied. “Eastern Dragons’ flames can eat through magical constructs like magic beams or barriers. Silver’s barrier is psychic in nature, not magical, so it’s not affected by that property of the fire.”

As soon as the flames stopped, the trio moved into action; Twilight fired a barrage of magic fire-arrows while Sonic stunned the beast with an 80-mph punch, leaving it open for Twilight’s attack to hit. Bursts of flame chained up and down the dark dragon’s length where the fire-arrows hit, scorching the scales and also dealing base magical damage in addition to Fire-based damage. The beast roared in anger, and fired a large sphere of fire at Twilight. Silver leapt in its path, calling up a new variation of his Barrier technique. Instead of simply detonating on contact with the barrier, the fireball bounced off of it, flying right back at the dark dragon. It exploded on impact, concussive force and magical fire assailing the beast and knocking it back.

The dragon, wounded and angry, lifted its head high and roared. In response, several of Nightmare’s shadow-demons emerged from the ground, and then rushed the trio. Sonic jumped in first, Homing-Attacking from one shadow-demon to the next, while Twilight blasted others with beams of magic, Silver using those Twi’s beams didn’t kill as living projectiles against those yet unharmed by the other two. During the course of this, the dark dragon was charging an ever-growing sphere of magical energy floating above its horns, presently twice as big across as Sonic. Twilight spotted this and fired a magic beam at the growing attack, catastrophically destabilizing it and causing it to explode. The dragon roared as the backlash harmed it, its antler-like horns now sporting cracks and fractures.

Sonic and Silver finished off the remaining summoned shadow-demons, and then returned their attention to the main threat, just as it breathed out a jet of multicolored fire at the trio. They broke apart, narrowly dodging the stream of fire (Sonic swore he felt the tips of his quills smolder, it was so close) and keeping in motion, as the dark dragon continued to launch various-colored fireballs at them. Twilight, rather than blocking or dodging, was focusing on telekinetically catching some of the fire from each blast fired at her, keeping it held above her head, swirling in place. Once she got a few separate parcels of fire, she merged the swirling fires together to form a larger one, which she continued to add to with each bit of the dragon’s fire she caught. Silver fired Sonic as a telekinetic whirling cannonball, smashing into the side of the dragon’s head. This was followed by a Homing Attack from the blue hedgehog that further aggravated and wounded the beast. Sonic stood in place after that, staring down the dragon as it reared up, roared… and took the combined fireball, launched by Twilight, straight down its throat.

The explosion of magical fire wreaked havoc on the dark dragon’s insides, fire eating its way out through gaps in its scales and from its nose and mouth. It let out a pained, strangled roar as its nature as a magical construct was eaten away by the magic-dissolving fire now raging unchecked within its body. The beast thrashed helplessly as it was burned away from the inside out. Finally, it collapsed to the ground, twitched a few times, and the parts of it that weren’t burnt to ash broke apart into particles of raw darkness.

The barrier faded away, and the rest of the group rushed in, checking on their friends, finding them slightly winded but otherwise okay. With that settled, they headed for the center of the nexus. A pulse of power from the seven Chaos Emeralds hit the nexus, severing Nightmare’s connection to it. However, there was an unexpected consequence, as a near-tangible wave of surprised anger hit them.

“Arrogant mortals!” Nightmare’s voice shouted in their heads. “You dare defy I, who have ravaged worlds for longer than your species have existed?! It seems you are too dangerous to allow to continue to traipse about in either of the worlds, so I have no choice but to bring you to my present location: the realm between realms from where I shall release the full might of my power! Come forth, foolish children, to oblivion!”

Before anyone could react, there was a flash of red and black light. When it faded, the entire group had vanished, pulled into the plane between planes by Nightmare.

Author's Note:

Comin' up on the home stretch