A compilation of stories happening in the universe of UME.
Additional tag: Anthology
A compilation of stories happening in the universe of Harmony of Heroes: Ultimate Multiverse Explorers. They will be about anything, anytime in the timeline, canon or not.
Beside Cappy Town’s big tree, Kirby caught the ball and passed it to Fololo who passed it to Iro who passed it to Tuff, and so on. The children were passing the ball to each other in a circle, often sending it too much to the left, right, or above, forcing them to run to catch it. Not far from them, Tiff was reading a book on a bench.
On one such occasion where the ball was sent too far above, making Kirby run to catch it, the ball was instead caught by Dedede, causing Kirby to crash into his belly and bounce off to fall on his butt.
“Oh! Thanks for the ball! Now, I think that I will keep it.”
“Hey!” Tuff shouted. “Give back the ball!”
“Nah. Finders keepers. Now it’s my ball and I’ll be the one playing with it. But if you want it back so badly, then how about you try to take it back by playing soccer? Me and my team of Waddle Dees against you and whoever you manage to recruit? Of course, I will totally win it and keep it while Kirby will cry in the mud. Eheheheheh!” Dedede walked away with the ball. “See you tomorrow at 10 am with whatever team of losers you will get!”
He left behind quite a bunch of unhappy kids (and whatever were Fololo and Falala).
“What do we do now?” Spikehead wondered.
“We prepare for the match,” Tiff said. “We will have to find people who will agree to play for us. I will ask around town.”
“I’m not sure if anyone will want to play against King Dedede,” Honey said.
“Maybe if we find Knuckle Joe…” Fololo proposed.
“He would still be only one player,” Honey countered.
“Will you play, Tiff? You aren’t really the sportive type,” Tuff said to his sister.
“I don’t know. If we don’t find enough players…”
She was stopped from saying more as, suddenly, she saw a tear in the fabric of space open. Out of it came a white, wings, horned equine a bit smaller than Tuff, but bigger than Kirby. The children could only watch in wonder.
“So, let’s see, where am I?” the equine said as she looked around before she spotted the children.
Silence followed, especially when the equine spotted Kirby.
Sweetie Void knew this could happen sooner or later, but meeting an alternate version of Kirby still took her by surprise and, for a moment, she wasn’t sure what to do. Thankfully, the first one who did something was the yellow skinned girl with the ponytail. Wait, three of these children (they were children, right? The girl and the boy beside her certainly were, but she had doubts for the others) were Cappies without their mushroom cap, and they had features that differentiated them, and one of them was even wearing clothes! And was that Lololo and Lalala flying beside them? Why were they so small? And last she remembered, Lololo and Lalala couldn’t fly.
“Hello? Who are you?” the girl asked.
“Uh. Hi. I’m Sweetie Void,” the filly answered. “Before you ask, I’m a visitor from another dimension. I explore universes.”
“From another dimension?” all the kids repeated more or less excitedly.
“That’s right! So, who are you?”
The kids presented themselves. The girl with the ponytail was Tiff. The boy with orange skin and yellow and green hair hiding his eyes was her brother, Tuff. The Cappies were Honey (the only girl), Iro, and Spikehead. Lololo and Lalala were actually Fololo and Falala. And finally, there was Kirby.
“Welcome to Cappy Town, in Dream Land,” Tiff said.
“Let me guess.” Sweetie pointed at a big castle visible on top of a cliff. “This is Dedede’s castle?”
Tiff was surprised. “Uh, yes. But how do you know?”
“I lived in an alternate version of Dream Land for a bit. The castle doesn’t look the same, but, castle in Dream Land, immediately, I thought “Dedede”. I’m also friends with alternate Kirby who is actually smaller than your Kirby.”
“That’s incredible!” Tiff exclaimed. “Do you know an alternate version of me?”
“No. I never met alternate you. Not sure you even exist in that Dream Land. I never encountered your species.”
“Oh.”
Sweetie spotted an adult Cappy passing by.
“And there are some differences, like Cappies. The adults aren’t that big in the other universe. They are actually about your size,” she said as she pointed at the three Cappies that were revealed to be really children. “And they wear mushroom caps and don’t have any features to differentiate them. And Kirby there is a bit smaller than this one, about half my size.”
“Wow, that’s small!” Tuff said.
“Now I’m curious to know what other differences there are between the two universes. You said that the other universe has a Dedede too but that he lives in a different castle?”
“Yes. Give me a second so I can have a better look at the castle. I can’t see it well from here with the trees and houses in the way.”
At that, Sweetie Void flew up, and a few seconds later, returned.
“Yeah, the other Dedede castle definitely has no dome roof or towers and cone roofs. And I don’t see the windows looking like glaring eyes.”
“A castle with windows that look like glaring eyes,” Spikehead said with a shudder. “Your Dedede sounds even meaner than ours.”
Sweetie Void raised an eyebrow. “It’s just a style. He loves evil-looking castles. But in reality, Dedede is a softy. Why?” She glared. “Is your Dedede a problem?”
“He stole our ball just a few minutes before you arrived!” Tuff exclaimed. “And then, he defied us to take it back by winning a soccer match against him!”
“He probably wants to ridicule Kirby again,” Falala said. “He always tries to find new ways to humiliate him, and it looks like his current attempt is by winning a soccer match over him.”
“His plots, at first, consisted of defeating Kirby, but eventually, they changed into plots to humiliate him, especially since he doesn’t have any more monsters to send,” Tiff said. “Also, he has an ego the size of the moon, he doesn’t care if he makes others suffer as long as he boosts it. He is also super selfish, violent, lazy…”
“He is a big bully!” Tuff exclaimed.
Sweetie Void groaned, rubbing her face. “Great. Your Dedede is still in his stage “steal everyone’s food to boost his own ego”. Yes, that is what my Dedede did at first before he mellowed down.”
“Our Dedede never went that far!” Honey said.
“But I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to do that one day,” Iro said.
“I don’t think he will dare. Now that he doesn’t have his monsters anymore, Kirby would beat him to a pulp,” Tuff said.
“Poyo!” the puffball exclaimed, agreeing.
“Then why not just beat him up to get back your ball?” Sweetie Void questioned.
“Using violence for just a ball, it would go a bit far, don’t you think? Especially if we can get it back in a non-violent way,” Tiff said.
“True. You said he had monsters?”
“Yes. He bought monsters from that company, Nightmare Enterprise, or N.M.E., and used them in his plots to harm Kirby or assert his control over Cappy Town, among others.”
“Nightmare Enterprise? Wait, Nightmare… Anything to do with an evil wizard?”
“eNeMeE, yes,” Tiff said. “You had him too?”
“eNeMeE? We are talking about the same wizard, right? Blue cloak with stars and pauldrons? Helmet with long yellow horns? Shades?”
“Yes, that’s eNeMeE,” Tiff confirmed.
“Well, in the other universe, he was called Nightmare. Kirby killed him.”
“Same for us.”
“So Dedede worked for him?”
“I wouldn’t say “worked”. He just bought the monsters. He was his client.”
“Whoa. Nightmare, CEO of a monster-selling company, and Dedede, his client. That’s… certainly different. And why is Dedede still king if he caused so much trouble?”
Tiff shrugged. “The Cappies are easily forgiving, and surprisingly, he can reveal a good side sometimes.”
“Good. He still remains Dedede in the end. He is not really evil, just a jerk with a good heart. Well then, how about I help you win this soccer match?”
“You will help us?” Tuff asked.
“Of course! Well, I never played soccer, but I should be good.”
“Even then, we will still need to find more players, and we aren’t sure if the Cappies will agree to play,” Tiff said.
“That’s no problem. I have some friends that I’m sure will agree to play. When is the match?”
“Tomorrow at 10am,” Fololo answered.
“Who among you will play?”
“Me!” Tuff shouted, raising his hand. “And Kirby too!”
“And me, if I have no choice,” Tiff said.
“So, with me, that leaves at least seven players. No problem,” Sweetie Void said. “Well, we have time, so how about you give me a tour of Cappy Town, and we can talk more about the differences between the two Dream Lands?”
“Alright,” Tiff agreed. “And I will present you to everyone.”
And so, Tiff, followed by the others, led Sweetie Void through the town, presenting her to the inhabitants like Chef Kawasaki, Chief Bookem, Mayor Len Blustergas, Gus, Biblio, and so on. At the end, the children separated, Kirby returned to his house, and Tiff and Tuff led Sweetie to the castle where they lived, taking the occasion to present her to their parents, Sir Ebrum and Lady Like.
Tiff sighed. “If you want to spend the night here, I will have to present you to Dedede.”
“Ah, don’t worry, I can deal with Dedede.”
They found Dedede eating, a giant purple snail at his side. If Sweetie remembered correctly what she was told during the tour, his name was Escargoon.
Dedede saw Tiff and immediately looked annoyed. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want? Oh, let me guess, you are giving up the match tomorrow because you found nobody to play with you!”
Sweetie Void was taken off guard by his Southern accent.
“You wish, Dedede! I’m here to present Sweetie Void to you. She will help us in tomorrow’s match, and she wishes to remain in the castle tonight.”
Dedede raised an eyebrow. Escargoon was the one who responded before he could. “And why would Dedede let someone who will play against him remain in his castle?”
Sweetie Void grinned at him. “Well, he is letting Tiff remain despite the fact that she is against him.”
Escargoon frowned. “Ah, good point.”
Dedede snorted. “Well you know what? I will be a good sport. I will let her remain in the castle. Because it won’t change anything for tomorrow, I will still beat Kirby in the match.”
“That’s so nice of you, King Dedede,” Sweetie Void said.
“By the way, who are you? Where do you come from?” Dedede asked.
“Like Tiff said, I’m Sweetie Void, visitor from another dimension.”
“WHAT?!” both Dedede and Escargoon yelled. Dedede almost toppled his chair.
“I come from a place called Equestria. I’m an alicorn pony. And yes, I’m just a filly, but I love exploring other dimensions. I developed a taste for adventure, you see.”
“I see…” Dedede said slowly, gawking at Sweetie Void.
“So I hope that you don’t mind that I help Kirby. It will be fun to play soccer. I will also bring friends.”
“Uh, well, that’s no problem. Like I said, that won’t change the outcome.”
Sweetie smirked at that. “Well then, as long as we have fun, that’s alright, but I will still do my best.”
“Yeah yeah. By the way, Escargoon here will be the referee,” Dedede informed.
“What?!” Tiff exclaimed. “He is not a neutral party! He will be on your side! He-he will allow you to cheat!”
Dedede put a hand on his chest, looking hurt. “Moi? Cheating? I would never!”
“I will be an exemplary referee,” Escargoon said. “Cheating won’t be allowed under my eyes. I promise.”
Dedede pointed at Escargoon. “See?”
Tiff gave an “I’m watching you” stare before stomping out of the room, grumbling that she didn’t believe it, that something was up. Sweetie Void followed her.
Once they were left alone, Dedede and Escargoon looked at each other, then cackled.
The night passed and morning came. Early, Sweetie left the universe to go search her friends for the match. Dedede made his Waddle Dees build a soccer field not far of Cappy Town, stands included, and ordered everyone in town to come watch it so they could witness his greatness. His team of Waddle Dees was already here, ready to start the match.
A few minutes before the match would start, Sweetie Void arrived with her friends, which revealed to be Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, Knuckle Joe, Rick, Marx, Adeleine, Daroach, and Void. Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, Meta Knight, Galacta Knight, the animals, Gooey, Ribbon, Yin and Yarn, Elline, Claycia, Dark Meta Knight, and the lieutenants of the Squeak Squad were also present but won’t play.
Local Dedede made big eyes upon seeing his counterpart and Kirby.
“What the-?!”
“Everyone,” Sweetie began. “I present to you my friends from an alternate version of Dream Land.” She then presented everyone.
Local Dedede pointed at his counterpart, who was a lot smaller than him. “You are playing with Kirby?”
Dedede smirked. “That’s right. We work very well together.”
Local Dedede gawked at him.
Meanwhile, the two Kirbys looked at each other, then both waved and said, “Hiii!”
Local Meta Knight was also here and, upon seeing his counterpart, Dark Meta Knight, and Galacta Knight, immediately asked them in duels which they agreed.
Sweetie Void did a double take at local Meta Knight’s Spanish accent.
“Are you Star Warriors too?” he asked Dark Meta Knight and Galacta Knight.
“Whatever they are, we aren’t,” Galacta Knight answered. “Or I guess we are?” he suddenly wondered. “If our group had a name, I suppose that this is what we would be called.”
All eyes then turned on Void once the locals finally remarked him. A bigger Kirby?
Void waved at them. “Hello. I’m Kirby’s father. Nice to meet all of you. I will be in the reserve.”
Jaws dropped, and local Kirby shouted, “Poyo?!”
Sweetie grinned. “Also, he is a God.”
Jaws dropped even lower.
“In the other universe, Kirby has a father who is a God?!” Tiff exclaimed.
Void glared at Sweetie who smiled innocently, then he said, “Treat me as if you never heard that. I’m here to have fun with my son.”
Escargoon was sweating, but he showed a watch around his arm. “It’s 10am. We should get in position to start the match.”
Everyone agreed and moved into position. Without surprise, local Dedede placed himself in the center of the field, ready to receive the ball from a Waddle Dee so he will lead the offensive. Meanwhile, three more Waddle Dees went midfield, two forward, and three in defense, plus the goalie obviously.
In the opposite team, after a bit of talk, Sweetie Void, Dream Universe Kirby, Tuff, and Daroach went midfield. Local Kirby, Knuckle Joe, Rick, and Marx went defense. Bandana Dee and Adeleine went forward. And Dedede went goalie, to local Dedede’s surprise.
“You are playing second fiddle to them?!”
“My size will be more useful here!”
Local Dedede didn’t look happy at all. “A Dedede should lead the charge!”
“At least, I’m playing smart.”
…
…
“Wait a minute! Are you implying…?!”
Dedede guffawed.
Meanwhile, the ones who weren’t playing went on the stands. Local Meta Knight went to sit beside his counterpart.
“What can you tell me about your friends?”
Meta Knight chuckled. “They never played soccer, so I expect a very chaotic match. But they are all very strong and have good teamwork so I’m not worried about their chances of victory. Dedede won’t let the ball pass. Marx will traumatize any poor Waddle Dee getting in his way. Daroach will be too fast to follow. And then there are Sweetie Void and Kirby who are in a league of their own. Prepare for a good show, and pity your Dedede.”
The whistle sounded, and Dedede received the ball. He immediately ran toward the goal only to have the ball stolen by Sweetie Void who passed it to Daroach who eventually attempted to dribble past a Waddle Dee a bit awkwardly, not used yet to kick a ball. Thankfully for him, the Waddle Dee was just as awkward and attempted to kick the ball only to end on his butt, allowing him to continue.
Only to be body tackled from the side by another Waddle Dee.
But no whistle sounded.
“Hey! That’s foul!” Tuff yelled only to see that Escargoon had his back turned and he was whistling. “Cheater!”
“Cheating? What cheating? As long as the referee doesn’t see anything, there is no cheating,” local Dedede said smugly.
From the reserve bench, Tiff fumed. “Grrrrr! I knew something like that would happen! No cheating under his eyes, of course! If he doesn’t look…!”
At her side, Void said, “Don’t worry. I’m sure that our time will counter that.”
Meanwhile, a Waddle Dee got the ball, then passed to another Waddle Dee who then passed to local Dedede who ran and barreled through local Kirby (not getting a whistle, obviously) before he kicked the ball at the goal.
Dedede stopped it without problem. He then threw it at Marx who began to walk on it to make it roll. He moved left and right to avoid Waddle Dees until he was stopped by a wall of three Waddle Dees. Then, he got down from the ball and passed it to Kirby who kicked, from the middle of the field. The ball was sent toward the goal like a cannonball and went right through the net, leaving a hole and a poor goalie who looked at it in horror. The ball was thankfully stopped by a shield from Sweetie Void before it could hit someone on the stands.
Escargoon was reluctant to whistle, but he did so anyway, after staring in shock at Kirby for several seconds. “1-0 for Kirby’s team!”
“As expected,” Meta Knight said.
“That’s not surprising. If our Kirby can send a giant frying pan flying around the sun, your Kirby can turn the ball into a cannonball,” local Meta Knight said with a chuckle.
Meta Knight looked at his counterpart. “Your Kirby did what?!”
The match resumed with local Dedede possessing the ball. Sweetie Void was about to take the ball again only for Dedede to ‘trip’ and fall right toward her.
“Eep!”
Thankfully, she teleported away. However, the ball went away and was caught by local Kirby who passed it to Tuff who passed it to Bandana Dee. He ran a bit, dribbling a Waddle Dee, before he kicked the ball. The goalie jumped to intercept it, but he was just too small to reach it and the ball landed in the net.
Escargoon whistled. “2-0!”
Local Dedede was seething.
Once the match resumed, he ran with the ball, took out his hammer, and hit Sweetie Void before she could steal the ball, of course not getting a whistle. Local Dedede continued running and hit the ball with his hammer before Marx, sending the ball to the goal only to be stopped again by his counterpart.
Dedede smirked. “So we use our weapons now?” He took out his hammer and hit the ball which traversed the whole field and entered the opposite goal.
Escargoon whistled. However, he said, “Weapons are forbidden! Penalty for King Dedede’s team!”
Dedede glared at Escargoon. “Now he does his job.”
Of course, local Dedede was the one doing the penalty, but the ball was stopped yet again by his counterpart.
Dedede threw the ball right away at Rick who ran and dribbled a Waddle Dee before he kicked the ball to the right. The ball was intercepted by Marx who passed it to Sweetie Void who kicked the ball, getting a goal.
“3-0!”
The match resumed, local Dedede was running with the ball. This time, he tried to avoid Sweetie Void only to be stolen by local Kirby who passed the ball to Knuckle Joe who passed the ball to Daroach who passed the ball to Adeleine only for her to be tackled by a Waddle Dee. Another Waddle Dee caught the ball and began to run with it.
Sweetie Void suddenly blindfolded Escargoon. “Hey! What is it?”
The Waddle Dee and the ball were inhaled by Kirby. He spat them and kicked the ball right away toward the goal.
Sweetie Void removed the blindfold, allowing Escargoon to see the goal.
Before he could say the score, local Dedede said, “Foul! Kirby inhaled the ball and the player!”
“You have no proof!” Sweetie Void shouted back. “Right, everyone?”
Everyone in her team agreed that Kirby didn’t inhale the ball and the player. Despite that, Escargoon whistled and shouted, “Foul!”
Sweetie Void groaned. “I tried.”
A Waddle Dee kicked the ball toward Dedede only to be intercepted by Tuff who ran a bit before he passed the ball to Bandana Dee who scored a goal.
“4-0!”
Local Dedede was bouncing in rage.
He ran with the ball, passed it to a Waddle Dee, only for the Waddle Dee to eventually be scared by Marx making a face, causing him to drop on his back with an arm on his heart, pale. Marx took the ball and passed it to Rick who headbutted the ball to Tuff only for him to be tackled by a Waddle Dee. Sweetie Void teleported to the ball and kicked it high. Kirby teleported to it and kicked it toward the goal, scoring.
All the locals stared at Kirby, Escargoon eventually whistling and shouting, “5-0”
“He can teleport… without an Ability?!” local Dedede exclaimed.
“That’s awesome!” Tuff shouted.
“Actually, it was the ESP Ability. Kirby can shift between all the Abilities he got to this point at will. Void trained him,” Sweetie Void informed.
The thought of a Kirby being able to change Ability at will horrified local Dedede. Meanwhile, local Kirby looked at his counterpart in awe.
“Did I hear that right? Your Kirby can change Ability at will?” local Meta Knight asked in shock.
“Yes,” all the visitors around him answered (except the animals).
After that, local Meta Knight was deep in thought. Could his Kirby learn to do that too?
The match resumed with Dedede running with the ball in his hands, making sure that Sweetie Void and Kirby couldn’t take it, only to trip on… nothing? Making him drop the ball.
Behind him, Sweetie Void whistled innocently.
“What have you done?” he yelled at her.
“Nothing. No way I could reach you from where I was behind you.”
While Dedede was busy yelling at Sweetie Void, local Kirby got the ball and dribbled all the way to the middle of the field before he kicked, sending the ball toward the goal and scoring, like his counterpart.
“6-0!”
The match resumed only for local Dedede to hit the ball with the hammer right away, sending it toward the goal. However, the ball was intercepted by Sweetie Void with a headbutt, sending the wall toward Daroach who passed to Adeleine who finished painting something. The next instant, she was surrounded by a wall, stopping a Waddle Dee from tackling her, and she left an opening to allow her to kick the ball and score a goal.
“7-0!”
“Wait! We are allowing that?” local Dedede exclaimed.
“Nothing in the rules is against putting a wall to stop someone from tackling you,” Adeleine said.
The match resumed, Dedede ran with the ball under one arm and used his hammer to keep the others away before he placed the ball before he eventually hit the ball with the hammer toward the goal only for it to be stopped by Dedede. He was ready to kick the ball to the other side of the field when he saw something in the sky.
“What is… Wait… Is that…?”
Questioningly, the others looked up at the sky and saw… a cloud of darkness approaching.
Sweetie Void gasped, then groaned. “Dark Matter. Come on, we were having so much fun.”
The giant cloud of darkness was already spreading all over the world, hiding the sun, and countless Dark Matters could be seen coming out of it and descending toward the surface.
Most of the locals began to panic, some trying to escape. Local Dedede and Escargoon seemed to hesitate between running away and using local Kirby as a cover.
Seeing that, Sweetie Void made a boom sound from her horn, gaining everyone’s attention.
“Remain close, everyone! Me and Kirby and Void and Galacta Knight can protect you from these things!” she shouted, amplifying her voice so everyone could hear.
“What are they?” Tiff asked after running toward her from the reserve bench.
“Dark Matter. Abominations of darkness that possess beings to spread misery and suffering to plunge worlds into darkness. They are only vulnerable to positivity, especially love.”
The local Meta Knight landed beside her. “Which means that we can’t do anything against them. I heard about this scourge of the universe but I had hoped that they would never come to this world. You can fight them?”
To answer him, Sweetie began to fire beams of positive Heart Matter at the approaching Dark Matters, blowing them up. At the same time, her Kirby took his Stella Knight form and flew alongside Galacta Knight and Void with rainbow swords and spear to attack the Dark Matters and protect everyone. The local Kirby looked at his counterpart in awe. He then thought about what Sweetie said and looked at Tiff.
She understood. “Kabu! Warp Star!” she yelled.
A few seconds later, a Warp Star arrived and approached Kirby who inhaled it, to Sweetie’s surprise. To her shock, it gave him the Star Rod.
“Eeh?!”
Kirby began to swing the Star Rod, sending countless star projectiles that were revealed to be effective against the Dark Matters. Sweetie Void was impressed by how many stars he could send with a single swing. This Star Rod was more powerful than the one from the Dream Universe.
Despite that, too many Dark Matters were coming, but Sweetie Void smirked.
Then, she emanated a pink light full of love that spread very far all over the world, destroying every single Dark Matters, including the cloud of darkness.
There was a screech of pain coming from a giant white ball that remained from the cloud.
Zero.
Sweetie looked at her Kirby, Galacta Knight, and Void, grinning. “So, who does the honor?”
Local Kirby raised an arm and shouted, “Poyo!”
Sweetie giggled. “Of course. It’s your world. You get to save it. But to fly up there, you will need something. Climb on my back.” She then changed to an appropriate size to accommodate the bigger local Kirby.
Local Kirby nodded and climbed on her.
There was a flash of light, and Sweetie’s mane and tail were suddenly full of glowing stars.
She laughed. “Of course the Star Rod is counted as an Ability!”
“Poyo?”
“Yeah, it happens when Kirby climbs on my back with an Ability. It was very nice back when I didn’t have lots of powers. Now, let’s go. Time to go kill my second Zero.”
So she flew toward Zero, Kirby readying the Star Rod.
It didn’t take long to reach him. He stared at them with his blood red eye full of hate and pain.
“I wish I could do something to end your pain, like what happened to Gooey,” Sweetie Void said sadly.
“My pain can never end,” Zero replied, to Sweetie’s surprise. “Pain is all that there is. Everyone will feel it and know it as the only truth.”
Kirby pointed the Star Rod at Zero, sending countless stars circling him, making him screech in pain. They weren’t enough, however, to kill him, to Kirby’s shock. The stars remained at least.
In return, Zero sent blood and created Dark Matters to attack Kirby and Sweetie Void, forcing the filly to fly around to avoid them while firing stars to destroy the Dark Matters.
Kirby sent more and more stars with the Star Rod, accumulating them around Zero who screeched more and more in pain.
Zero tried to ram them but Sweetie teleported to avoid him, reappearing behind him. Again, Kirby fired stars from the Star Rod. By now, Zero’s body was almost entirely surrounded by them.
Finally, Zero’s body began to glow with the accumulated power of all the stars. The eye quickly expelled itself out as the body began to evaporate. Sweetie teleported again to avoid the eye as it tried to ram her. The eye was fast and immediately changed trajectory to go after her, forcing her to teleport more while Kirby continued to fire stars with the Star Rod. However, the eye was too fast and was able to avoid most of the stars, to Kirby’s shock. Some still caught him and surrounded him.
In the end, it was a matter of time before enough stars surrounded the eye and caused it to evaporate too, Zero giving one last screech.
“You are lucky, Kirby, my Zero’s death was much messier,” Sweetie Void said.
“Poyo.”
“And I don’t think that this one will return as Zero Two. His body disintegrated. No way for him to reform.”
“Poyo?”
“Yeah, I had to deal with him two times before he died definitively, and the second time was just as messy as the first time. I planted a crystal into his eye.”
Kirby shuddered.
“I know, not a nice memory. Still one of the messiest deaths I experienced.”
Sweetie Void flew back toward the soccer field, hearing, then seeing almost everyone there applauding at her and Kirby.
Once they landed, everyone surrounded them and congratulated them.
“That was awesome!”
“You were incredible!”
“Good job!”
“That’s my girl!” Dedede shouted.
“We can’t thank you enough for saving us,” one of the Cappies, the Mayor, said to Sweetie eventually.
“It was nothing. It was actually my joy to have such an easy fight against Zero. It was therapeutic. He caused a lot of suffering to everyone, me included, in the other universe,” Sweetie Void replied.
“How bad would it have been if you hadn’t been here?” local Dedede asked hesitantly with a gulp.
“Everyone here would have been possessed except Kirby who would have been forced to fight all of you. Then, he would have had to find a way to fly to Zero while holding the Star Rod. Finally, he would have had to fight Zero while also dealing with the Dark Matters that he created.”
“In other words, this would have been very bad, but Kirby would have certainly still won in the end,” local Meta Knight said. “The battle would have been more difficult than the one against eNeMeE, but Kirby has proven more than once that he can win despite all odds.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Sweetie agreed. “So, what about the soccer match?”
Local Dedede grumbled something, then tossed the ball at Tuff.
Escargoon sighed. “You were losing very badly anyway.”
“Shut up!”
At that, Dedede stomped away, followed by Escargoon and the Waddle Dees.
To celebrate Dark Matter’s destruction, another soccer match was started instead. What had been in Sweetie’s team was divided into two teams joined by some of the locals. Local Meta Knight even decided to join in the team opposing local Kirby, probably to test him. Sweetie and her Kirby also went to opposing teams. Void went for goalie in Kirby’s team. The children all joined. Tiff was the referee. It was a lot of fun! And no cheating!
And since the soccer field was here to stay, the locals could have more matches in the future!
Before long, the match was over. In the end, Sweetie Void and the others remained for the rest of the day, spending it visiting Cappy Town and having a good time with the locals.
Marx made several pranks with the children.
The local policecappy kept an eye on Daroach.
Local Meta Knight had his duel with his counterpart and Galacta Knight.
Local Kirby had a brief nap with his counterpart and Rick.
When the sun set, Sweetie Void promised to bring a portal to allow local Kirby and the others to visit, and in return, she will visit them regularly.
“And don’t hesitate to call if more threats show themselves on Popstar. I know for a fact that Nightmare and Dark Matter were only the start if this is like in the other universe,” Sweetie Void said.
“Nothing that Kirby shouldn’t be able to deal with, I bet,” Tuff said proudly.
“Yeah, especially if he can get the Star Rod whenever he wants just by inhaling his Warp Star. That’s a big advantage he has compared to my Kirby before he trained with Void. But it means that Tiff will have to remain at his side.”
“And I don’t intend to leave him,” Tiff said. “So I guess this is goodbye for now.”
“Yes, goodbye.”
Sweetie Void and Tiff shook hoof and hand. Then goodbyes were said with the others before Sweetie opened a rift.
It was a peaceful day in Ponyville. One among many others in the years of peace since Princess Twilight’s coronation. Nothing unusual in sight.
Not even a rift opening caught anyone’s attention. With Discord, it wasn’t a rare occurrence.
Who, or rather what, came out of the rift, however, definitively gained everyone's attention.
A familiar white filly with purple and pink mane and tail.
An alicorn white filly with purple and pink mane and tail.
Silence fell as everyone in the immediate area, ponies, dragons, yaks, griffons, and so on, looked at her in awe.
The filly looked around, quickly seeing that she was the center of attention.
“Oh. I guess it eventually had to happen,” Sweetie Void said. “Uh…” She waved with a sheepish smile. “Hi, everyone.”
…
“Well well well what do we have here?” a familiar voice said.
“Oh! Hello Discord! As expected, you felt my arrival right away!”
At this moment, Discord appeared in front of her. “An alicorn Sweetie Belle, still a filly. Now that’s one bundle of chaos, or my name isn’t Discord. What brings you to our little corner of the multiverse? Bringing news of impending doom?”
Sweetie Void giggled. “Not at all. I’m just visiting. I explore worlds.”
“Are you saying that you come from another world?” a stallion shouted. Wait a minute, he looked like Snip if he was an adult. His Cutie Mark…
Oh…
“That’s right!” Discord said before he patted Sweetie’s head. “This little one is a Sweetie Belle from another world.”
The crowd got excited at this, and many began to approach, asking questions. The poor filly was mobbed from all sides, to Discord’s amusement. She glared at him before she flew up to get out of the crowd.
“Alright, alright everyone. I will answer all your questions. Just, let me do this…” She created ten clones that she sent among the crowd, making them gasp. “Now, have fun!” And she flew away. The clones left behind grumbled, having to do the dirty work.
Up in the sky, Sweetie rested on a cloud when Discord joined her. She immediately took out a water gun and sprayed him, making him splutter. “Revenge!”
Discord snapped his fingers and turned the water into chocolate milk before he opened his mouth and let it enter it, drinking it. When the liquid stopped coming, he wiped himself with a napkin and said, “Thank you.”
Sweetie huffed and threw away the water gun before giggling.
“So, I’m in the future. Don’t think I haven’t noticed my classmates now adults among the crowd.”
“Well, judging that you are still a filly, yes, I’m guessing that you come from the past. Or at least an alternate past. Our Sweetie Belle never turned into an alicorn. Unless you were born one? With alternate universes, everything is possible. Also, not the same Cutie Mark. What is it? A black blotch? What are you the alicorn of? Gothics?”
“I turned into an alicorn of void. I have a much easier control of the Original Energy of the Omniverse to use all other kinds of energies, giving me pretty much unlimited possibilities with my powers.”
Discord whistled. “You are one OP filly, uh? Wait a minute, I think that I heard about you. An alternate me talked about an OP Sweetie Belle searching OP partners to save universes in the Chaosnet. Was that you?”
“Yep, that was me.”
“Oh, how small the Omniverse is.”
“You are just the lucky Discord. It could have been any other Discord.”
“True, true. So, you said you are just visiting? What do you intend to visit in our glorious universe?”
“Well, I’m clearly in a future that could have happened if I hadn’t been sent to the Dream Universe. I want to see it. What has become of me and the others here. How Equestria turned out. I saw lots of creatures other than ponies down there.”
“Well, I guess that I could tell you, but where would be the fun? Time for some exploration!”
“I’m all for it! Just point me in the right direction!”
Discord pointed down at a large building not far from Twilight’s castle. “The School of Friendship, built to teach the Magic of Friendship. You will find yourself there.”
“Great! And since it isn’t far from the castle, I will be able to say hello to Twilight afterward!” Sweetie grinned. But then, her grin slowly disappeared to be replaced by uncertainty. “And… Rarity? Where is she? Still working at Carousel Boutique?”
“Last I heard, she is in Manehattan for one of her fashion shows. She goes all over Equestria and beyond for fashion, she rarely remains at the same place for long.”
“Oh, ok. Well then, time to mess with myself. Coming with me?”
“Of course! I don’t want to miss the reactions!”
Sweetie Void turned herself invisible and flew down from the cloud toward the School of Friendship, Discord following her also invisible, but making sure that they could see each other.
They entered the school, and Discord guided Sweetie inside it to a classroom. Sweetie passed through the door, allowing her to enter the classroom without anybody noticing anything. Here, she found her counterpart, adult and an unicorn, with a different Cutie Mark, teaching.
I’m a teacher? she asked Discord by telepathy.
Yes, she is. Surprised?
I never expected to become a teacher. But I guess that me and my friends know some stuff about friendship. Now, what should I do…?
Planning something?
Sweetie Void saw an empty desk in the back, and she got an idea.
Yes. Observe.
She approached the desk, then climbed the chair, and waited for herself to turn her back to write something on the board before she turned herself visible, but as a unicorn instead of an alicorn. She even gave herself the same Cutie Mark than the one her counterpart possessed. She looked exactly like a filly version of her counterpart.
Sweetie Belle turned back to face the classroom and continued to talk for a while, not noticing Sweetie Void at first. The griffon sitting beside her was the first to remark her, and she did a double take before she looked back and forth between the filly and the teacher.
Discord already had to hold back a laugh. Sweetie Void looked at the gawking griffon and also had to hold back.
The griffon raised her claw. “Uh… Teach. You may want to look…”
Sweetie Belle saw her and asked, “What is i-” before she finally noticed her counterpart who waved at her with a grin.
She looked stupefied, and everyone in the classroom followed her gaze and also saw the filly that looked exactly like their teacher.
“What the-?”
“Am I hallucinating?”
“You are seeing her too?”
Sweetie Belle finally closed her mouth and got a deadpan look. “Oh ah ah. Very funny Discord.”
Discord appeared beside her, still holding a laugh. “Hey, for once, I have nothing to do with it.”
Sweetie Void waved at Sweetie Belle again. “Hello, me! How are you?”
Sweetie Belle took a big breath. “Ok, if this is not Discord, then you are a changeling, and I ask you to stop that immediately. Why even a filly?”
At that, everyone nodded in understanding, some laughing.
“Oh, of course, a changeling.”
“Very funny.”
“You got us for a moment.”
Sweetie Void raised an eyebrow, grinning wider. “Not a changeling.” She changed a hoof into a hand and snapped her fingers, and the next instant, all the desks began to dance.
Sweetie Belle glared at Discord. “This is you, Discord!”
A laugh escaped him. “I told you, it’s not me! If it was really me, you know I would say it.”
“Then who are you!” Sweetie Belle yelled at Sweetie Void.
Sweetie Void smirked. “I’m you.”
“Stop that!” Sweetie Belle waved at the dancing desks. “I don’t have this power!”
Sweetie Void still smirked. “Then how about you ask me a question that only you would know the answer to?”
“Very well. What was the name of my very first plushie?”
“Uh. Are you sure you want me to reveal that to everyone here?”
“The answer won’t be revealed to them because there is no way you know this answer. Only me and my family know it, and it was never said to anypony else.”
“Miss Cuddle,” Sweetie Void answered.
Sweetie Belle gawked at her. “How?!”
Many in the room awwed, others laughed, making Sweetie Belle blush.
“Told you, I’m you,” Sweetie Void said.
“But… But… But… This can’t be… How…”
She fainted.
Discord exploded into laughter, literally.
Some of the students went to see if their teacher was alright while many others stared at Sweetie Void.
One of them eventually said, “Maybe we should bring Headmare Starlight Glimmer.”
A changeling immediately ran out of the room.
Not long later, Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst (who had a bigger beard than the Sunburst Sweetie Void knew) entered the room with the changeling. They looked at the fainted Sweetie Belle, then at a grinning and waving Sweetie Void still sitting at her desk (which was still dancing).
“Alright. What is going on?!” Starlight shouted.
Sweetie Void finally turned herself back into her alicorn self and descended from her chair to approach Starlight and Sunburst.
“Sweetie Void. Visitor from another dimension. Nice to meet you.”
Everyone stared at her in awe. Then, Sweetie Belle woke up.
“Ugh… What happ-”
She saw her alicorn counterpart and fainted again. Discord’s laughter started anew.
Sweetie Void was now in the headmare’s office with said headmare, Starlight Glimmer, the vice headmare, Sunburst, Discord, Sweetie Belle now awakened, and also Apple Bloom and Scootaloo who Sweetie Belle fetched from their classrooms. Starlight just finished talking to a mirror.
A few moments later, Twilight Sparkle teleported in the room. In the future, she looked more like Celestia, taller than a normal pony, with a wavy mane and tail. It was difficult for Sweetie Void to put this Twilight and the Twilights she knew as the same pony.
Rarity was with her, her curly mane and tail now sporting gray stripes. Sweetie Void felt a pang in her chest when seeing Rarity with gray stripes. She couldn’t stop looking at her.
Twilight immediately saw Sweetie Void and smiled at her. “You are the visitor from another world Starlight told me about. It is nice to meet you, Sweetie Belle.”
“Nice to meet you!”
“Oh, look at you! An alicorn!” Rarity said as she approached Sweetie Void, looking ready to give her a hug. “I can’t believe that any version of my little sister is an alicorn!”
“Yes, it’s incredible!” Sunburst said. “I knew that alternate worlds exist, but I never expected to see somepony from such a world! I never even saw the human counterparts that Twilight talks so much about!”
“How did you become an alicorn, Sweetie Belle?” Rarity asked.
“Actually, call me Sweetie Void. This is to differentiate me from other Sweetie Belles. And my ascension to alicornhood is… a long story. To make it short, it happened during a fight against a powerful rival, after many dangerous adventures.”
“Why would you have adventures and fight someone?” Rarity asked.
“You can thank Twilight. She accidentally sent me to another world where a lot happened.”
Rarity sighed and stared at a sheepish Twilight. “Why am I not surprised?”
“What are you the alicorn of?” Scootaloo asked. “It’s hard to say with your Cutie Mark.”
“Void,” Sweetie Void answered.
“Void?” everyone except Discord replied.
“Yep! Void! As in the void between the universes. From which everything starts and toward which everything ends. Creation and Destruction.”
“Fascinating! Being the alicorn of such a primordial concept, you must be one of the most powerful beings in existence!” Sunburst said excitedly.
“She pretty much has unlimited power,” Discord said. “She can wrestle with Gods.”
Sweetie Void waved her hoof dismissively. “Yeah yeah. I defeated Gods, I’m also queen and the leader of a multiversal organization, whatever. I’m not here to talk about myself. I’m here to discover more about this world. So, Twilight, ruling Equestria alongside Celestia and Luna?”
Sweetie Void’s words helped everyone recovering from what they learned, and Twilight cleared her throat. “Actually, Celestia and Luna are retired. I rule Equestria with the help of my friends, the Council of Friendship, and Spike, my advisor.”
“... Wow. Celestia and Luna? Retiring? Now that’s one thing that feels weird to hear.”
“Ya get used to it,” Apple Bloom said.
“Any threat since you started ruling?” Sweetie Void asked.
“No, we thankfully have a period of peace since Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow were defeated all these years ago,” Sweetie Belle said. “After all these villains coming one after another, that’s a relief.”
“Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow? Mmh… Maybe I should keep an eye on them. I don’t think that I have to worry about Cozy, but I wouldn’t put it past Chrysalis and Tirek to try something again. Maybe I should visit them in Tartarus.”
“You should actually keep an eye on your Discord if he gets in mind to help prepare your Twilight for her rule,” Rarity said, glaring at Discord.
Sweetie Void looked at a sweating draconequus. “Sounds like a nice story. Mind telling it?”
“Well, you see… Ahem. I disguised myself as Grogar and…”
Discord said everything about what he did with Chrysalis, Tirek, Cozy Glow, and also Sombra while disguised as Grogar. At the end, Sweetie Void was facehoofing.
“I don’t think that I have to worry about my Discord pulling such a stunt. He knows better, and I personally destroyed Grogar’s bell, so no worry there. Phantom’s Discord doesn’t have any villain left to use. Her Tirek is dead and her Chrysalis is in peace with her Equestria. Her Cozy isn’t a problem anymore. This would leave Sombra but he wouldn’t be enough. This leaves Apple Death’s Discord. I will have a talk with him. The chances he does that are low, but I wouldn’t put it past him to try something.”
Silence followed. Sweetie Void destroyed Grogar’s bell? She knew three Discords? A Chrysalis at peace with Equestria?
“Who are Phantom and Apple Death?” Scootaloo asked.
“Powerful alternate versions of you and Apple Bloom respectively. Not alicorns, but just as powerful,” Sweetie Void answered.
AppleBloom hesitated. “Uh… Why Apple Death?”
“She is the Spirit of Death in her world, like Discord is the Spirit of Chaos. No, she is not a draconequus. She is still a filly.”
“What circumstances would lead me to become the Spirit of Death?” Apple Bloom asked in shock.
“Circumstances you won’t encounter in this world, don’t worry,” Sweetie Void answered before she looked at Discord. “No Thanatos in this world, right?”
“Who is Thanatos?” Discord asked.
“Thought so. To answer you, Discord, he is your little brother in Apple Death’s world. Be glad he doesn’t exist here. Half of the ghost population there is directly or indirectly because of him, if you see what I mean.”
Everyone paled at this.
“Thank you for confirming that I prefer being unique,” Discord said.
“So…” Sweetie Void looked at everyone in turn, looking longer at Rarity before passing to the next. “What about Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie?”
“How about we give you a tour of Ponyville?” Twilight proposed.
Sweetie Void agreed, and all of them except Starlight and Sunburst left the school. They first went to Sweet Apple Acre. Sweetie Void was surprised to find out that Applejack and Rainbow Dash now lived together, but she was happy for them too, and also for Big Mac and Sugar Belle and their son. She was saddened about Granny Smith, but it was expected.
Next, they went to Sugarcube Corner where they found Pinkie Pie, now married to Cheese Sandwich and having a son. Again, Sweetie Void was happy for them, and she happily ate everything that Pinkie gave her. She had to admit, Pinkie Pie turned into a real backer goddess. Pound and Pumpkin Cake were now the ones running the bakery.
Finally, they found Fluttershy in the market, in line before a flower stand. However, just as they saw her…
A white-maned purple unicorn in a cloak suddenly arrived and passed everyone to go right at the head of the line.
“So sorry, but you need to wait your turn like everypony else,” Fluttershy said.
“Unicorns have better things to do than wait in line,” the unicorn replied before she pushed Fluttershy on the ground, making everypony gasp.
Sweetie Void recognized this mare right away and glared at her. “Leave her to me.”
She teleported between the mare and Fluttershy, taking the both of them by surprise.
“Hello, Opaline. Fancy seeing you here.” She tore off the cloak with her magic, revealing wings, making everyone gasp again. “Outside of Skyros. I thought that simple unicorns, pegasis, and earth ponies were too lowly for you to mingle with them.
Opaline growled. “Who are you? How do you know me? I never saw you before!”
“You don’t know me, but I know you. What happened? You would never be caught alive outside of Skyros.”
“This is none of your con-”
“Wait, let me guess. You tried to take over the throne to rise above the other alicorns, like Celestia and Luna?”
“Ugh…?!” Opaline took a step back.
“I told you, I know you. I know how Celestia and Luna treated you. I know how angry you are at them. You want to be like them, superior to others. And here, you acted on it, failed, and got banished. And now that you have nothing left, you want to make Celestia and Luna pay by destroying the kingdom they ruled over by putting the ponies against each other. This is what you wanted to do, right? This is why you disguised yourself as a unicorn and started to brag about the unicorns’ superiority. You probably intended to do the same with pegasi and earth ponies.”
Opaline could only stare at Sweetie Void, amazed, shaking.
“But… But-but how?! How in Cosmo’s name could you…”
Sweetie shrugged. “You see, Discord showed me this thing called TV tropes… And it’s been way more useful than I ever expected! Like now!”
“... Huh?”
“Also, for the third time, I know you. I already encountered other versions of you. Now is the time where I either manage to convince you to stop and go have a talk with Celestia and Luna, or we fight and I end up defeating you in ten seconds flat. So, do we do it the nice way, or the hard way?”
Opaline growled for a moment, then fired a large fireball at Sweetie Void who punched it into the sky, to everyone’s surprise.
“Strike one.”
Next, Opaline sent a large stream of fire, causing creatures around to scatter and yell in fear. Sweetie Void didn’t move however and let the stream engulf her. When the stream stopped, Sweetie revealed herself to be burned, but still alive, and her burns healed right away, to Opaline’s horror.
“Strike two.”
“Who are you?!”
“Sweetie Void.”
Opaline screamed in rage and gathered fire into a ball of fire that grew and grew until it was easily the size of the School of Friendship, like a miniature sun. She then sent the ball toward Sweetie Void who simply raised a hoof…
And absorbed it.
“Wh… Wh… Wh…” Opaline couldn’t even say a word.
“Strike three, you’re out.”
The next instant, Sweetie Void was above Opaline and punched her down on the ground so hard that a small crater formed. Opaline was out right away.
Everyone around starred in silent awe at the scene. A filly one shot a fully grown alicorn like it was nothing.
“I did say she could wrestle with Gods,” Discord said. “A Fire Alicorn? That’s nothing.”
Twilight advanced. “That was… a very impressive display, Sweetie Void. Thank you for taking care of her. You said you met other versions of her? Who is she?”
“Opaline Arcana. Alicorn of Fire from the city of Skyros, the city of alicorns. She was a childhood friend of Celestia and Luna. However, when Celestia and Luna got their sun and moon Cutie Marks, they became venerated by the other alicorns. Being children at the time, it went to their head and they thought themselves superior, resulting in them ending their friendship with Opaline and treating her like an inferior being. She pretty much got an inferiority complex because of that, and you can guess how this went from there.”
Twilight looked at Opaline, then sighed. “It was very difficult for me to understand that Celestia wasn’t the perfect pony I thought she was. This is a reminder that she is just that: a pony, who makes errors like any other ponies.”
Sweetie Void nodded. “We should bring Opaline to Celestia and Luna so they can talk to her and hopefully convince her to see reason. Where do they live now that they retired?”
“Silver Shoals. I can bring us there right away.”
“I guess that we will leave you to it?” Rarity said. “This seems to be a personal affair.”
Twilight nodded. “We will let Celestia and Luna have their talk alone. Hopefully, they will have good news.”
So Twilight teleported herself Opaline to Silver Shoals, right before the house where Celestia and Luna now lived.
Twilight knocked on the door, and Luna was the one who opened it. Before she even had time to say anything, she saw Opaline and her words remained stuck.
“O-Opaline? What…?”
“She was banished from Skyros and she attempted to bring discord to Equestria. I’m hoping that you and Celestia can talk to her.”
Luna understood, and guilt immediately filled her. “Yes. Enter. Bring her on the couch.”
“Thank you.”
So Twilight entered, levitating Opaline behind her, before Luna closed the door. Twilight dropped Opaline on the couch, then said, “I will leave you to your personal talk.”
“Thank you Twilight.”
“Where is Celestia?”
“In the market. She shouldn’t be long. Don’t worry. If Opaline wakes up and gets violent, we will be able to restrain her. We may have to teleport to a desert area however if things get really bad.”
“I hope that it will go well, and that you will get your friend back. Goodbye.”
Twilight teleported away.
Sweetie Void spent the rest of the day in Ponyville with the CMC and the Council of Friendship, sharing stories, encountering ponies and creatures like Luster Dawn and her friends, having a party thanks to Pinkie Pie, playing with the fillies and colts, including Pinkie’s son and Big Mac’s son, and doing some pranks with Discord.
When the sun set, it was time for her to say goodbye.
“We will see you again, right? It was fun to have another me,” Sweetie Belle said.
“Of course you will see me again! I want to eventually explore more of this future Equestria.”
Sweetie Void looked at Rarity. Smiling, the elder unicorn decided to hug her.
“You are welcome back here anytime. You have a home here.”
Sweetie Void’s eyes were wet. “Thank you.”
After more goodbyes, Sweetie Void opened a rift, waved at everyone, and jumped through.
Sweetie Void landed beside a road not far from a city. She saw a car pass, and she immediately understood that she was on Earth, in “modern” time.
It wasn’t her first Earth, but it didn’t mean that she wasn’t interested in exploring it. You never knew if it was some interesting variant, like Solid Snake’s Earth, or Joker’s Earth.
The only problem was that she had no idea where to start.
Another car passed. Someone in it threw a can at her. The can thankfully missed, but Sweetie still let out an indignant “Hey!” while glaring at the car.
Throwing a can at me immediately upon seeing me, what the heck?
In the end, she decided that it didn’t matter. She turned herself human (making sure to turn her hair brown), then teleported to the city, in the sky above it. Looking down, she saw an empty alley and teleported to it.
Her first objective: finding a newspaper. It was the best way to find out if something was going on in this world. If she can't find anything, then she will just explore around, going from city to city. If she can't find anything after a few days, then she will leave.
A newspaper flew right into her face. With an annoyed groan, she tore it off from her face to look at it. “Thanks, Writer. So, let’s see… Uhu… Uhu… Wait, what? Over 1 000 000 more humans ponified? What?! The Conversion Bureaux… Ponification… Sent to live in the ever expanding realm of Equestria? What the buck is going on?”
There was also an article about how some group, the Human Liberation Front, destroyed a Conversion Bureau in some city of America with a bomb. There was a quote from Twilight Sparkle saying how saddened she was that this happened. That some humans just couldn’t accept ponies. There were also quotes from random people saying that it was good riddance, that the invaders deserved it, and all.
Sweetie Void turned herself into an adult and exited the alley before she called an old lady not far.
“Excuse me, is there a Conversion Bureau in this city?”
“Oh, yes, there is one,” the old lady answered. “Continue this way and you should find it. Equestrian chariots are just beside it, ready to transport the ponified to Equestria. Why? Do you intend to ponify yourself?” The old lady seemed to judge her with her look with these words.
“Uh, no, I just wanted to look. I’m not decided yet.”
The old lady nodded. “I understand that it is to save yourself, but frankly, I would prefer to die a human rather than become one of them. But I guess it’s your choice. Good luck.”
And the old lady left, leaving Sweetie alone.
Like the old lady said, Sweetie easily found the Conversion Bureau, a simple building among others out of which were parked chariots with ponies climbing on them and pegasi ready to lift them into the sky. Humans entered the building, ponies exited it. Humans glared at them, others looked at them hesitantly.
She approached one of the ponified to talk, but as soon as the stallion saw her, he glared at her. “Back off, human! We have nothing to do with your savage species anymore!”
It took her off guard. She didn’t expect such hostility. Especially from an ancient human toward his ancient species.
“It’s no use talking to them,” a man behind Sweetie said. “When they are ponified, it’s not just body, but also mind. They stop thinking like humans. Everything that makes them human is gone.”
“I see…” But why such hostility?
She left, and returned as an unicorn mare, climbing on one of the chariots. The same stallion than earlier, who was just beside her, talked to her.
“I’m glad that I’m not one of these beasts anymore.”
Sweetie Void decided to go with it. “Me too.”
“I’m an ancient soldier, you see. I saw war. So much death. So much suffering. No more. Ponies, at least, don’t know what it is to be at war. I will finally be able to live in peace.”
Tell that to the changelings. They pretty much declared war to Equestria when they invaded the wedding.
“Humanity is getting what it deserves. I’m glad that they are disappearing. Earth will be better without them. Ponies will take better care of it.”
Other ponies who heard him agreed, even the pegasi pulling the chariots, causing humans to glare at them even more.
“I know, right? Such barbares. Polluting everything,” Sweetie Void said.
Before long, the chariots took off as others arrived to take their place. A long journey followed. After several hours, they arrived at some kind of limit. On one side: Earth. On the other: more colorful, more homely, Equestria. The limit was expanding, and Sweetie could see a road on the Earth side disappearing little by little as it was engulfed by it. She also saw a house get the same fate.
So it destroys what is human made?It is expanding… This guy said that humanity will eventually disappear… Do humans die if they touch it? This is why they ponify? To avoid such fate? What even is Equestria doing here, on Earth? And why is it expanding?
Before long, she saw villages and towns being built, obviously to house the new ponies.
It took a few more hours, after flying over an ocean, to reach lands that she recognized. Before long, she saw Canterlot, at the foot of which was a camp toward which the chariot was going. Soon, they landed, and members of the Royal Guard were present, helping the ponies disembarking. More chariots were taking off elsewhere in the camp, transporting the ponies elsewhere.
Sweetie Void found herself in a line, behind the stallion. Little by little, they approached a Royal Guard who was noting stuff while saying, “Pegasus. Cutie Mark: a tornado. What will your new name be?”
The pegasus stallion he was facing said, “Nimble Twister.”
The Royal Guard nodded and noted it. “You can go. Next.”
The pegasus advanced, and the next pony, an earth pony mare, advanced in turn to face the guard. “Earth Pony. Cutie Mark: red, yellow, and blue flowers. What will your name be?”
“Uh… I haven’t decided.”
“Mmh… What do you think of Lily Sunshine?”
“I love it!”
The guard noted it down. “You can go. Next.”
It continued until it was Sweetie’s turn. The stallion before her named himself Crimson Spirit.
“Unicorn. Cutie Mark… A black blotch?”
“Black paint,” Sweetie Void helped. “Let’s go with Black Dream for my name.”
The Royal Guard eyed her, but he nodded and noted it down.
After that, Sweetie Void was left to do what she wanted, so she used the occasion to talk with more ponified which pretty much all had the same speech: they were glad that they were now ponies, they didn’t regret giving up their humanity, they wanted to leave the sufferings caused by humanity behind, all that stuff. So said that they wondered why they hesitated to become human. A couple even said that they were glad that the group Ponification for Earth's Rebirth forced the ponification on them, that their life will be better thanks to it.
These last ones were definitely a red flag for Sweetie. Humans forced to become ponies should be angry, not happy. Being a pony wasn’t such an improvement from being human! Well, beside the ability to fly for pegasi and to use magic for unicorns.
She decided that she had enough. She moved behind a tent and teleported away, to outside of Ponyville. No tree castle here, so she was fairly early in the timeline. Maybe she was even before Twilight became an alicorn.
She turned herself back into her alicorn filly self and flew, finding the Golden Oak Library. Oh, the nostalgia. She landed before the door and opened it. It was a library after all.
She found Spike putting books back in their place, on a ladder.
“Hello Spike!”
“Uh? Sweetie Belle? Wait a minute.” He placed a last book, then descended the ladder. “Alright. What do you want, Sweetie… Belle?” As he turned around and saw Sweetie Void, he stopped himself in surprise.
“What? Do I have something?” Sweetie Void asked, rubbing her head with her wing.
“Wh… You… You are…”
“An alicorn? Yeah, I know. Great, right? Anyway, where is Twilight? I need to talk with her.”
“Uh… At one of the Conversion Bureaux. One was destroyed by a bomb, and she is helping to rebuild it.”
“Oh, ok.”
“But… Who are you? I mean, you can’t be Sweetie Belle! You are an alicorn! And older! And you have a Cutie Mark!”
“Call me Sweetie Void. I come from an alternate Equestria.
“An alternate… Really?!”
“Uhuh. Well, if Twilight isn’t here, I guess that I will directly go talk to Celestia.”
“I can send a message to Twilight. I’m sure she will immediately come if I tell her about you. Well, she will still take several hours to come, but she will be here as soon as possible.”
Sweetie Void nodded. “Yes, go on.”
Spike immediately took a parchment and wrote in it. After a few minutes, he breathed fire at it, sending the letter to Twilight.
Right away, Spike turned to Sweetie Void who had been waiting. “So, what is it like in your Equestria? How did you become an alicorn?”
“Oh, my Equestria is pretty much like here, except that it never left Equus. Really, how did it happen?”
“Princess Celestia saw this world and how the humans were dying because they were warring with each other constantly and their pollution caused lots of problems, so she decided to help them. So she transported Equestria to this world. Right away, the equestrian realm limit started to expand, and it was discovered that magic is mortal to humans, so the humans only have a few years left before the equestrian realm covers the whole world and they all die. Thankfully, Twilight, with the help of scientists both ponies and humans, created a serum to ponify the humans and save them.”
By brainwashing them, Sweetie Void thought. That’s the gist: get brainwashed or die. I don’t like this choice. Celestia could have kept her help to herself. I really hope that the equestrian realm expanding wasn’t planned.
“What about Equus? I mean, if Celestia and Luna are here, who is moving the sun and the moon?”
Silence followed. Then, Spik gasped. “Oh no! What have we done?!”
“Calm down, Spike. Equus isn’t dead under the eternal fire of the sun and the eternal cold of the moon. There are other alicorns. Queen Cosmo must have taken over. I hope that Celestia told her about her plan, or the poor mare must have gotten quite the surprise.”
“Queen Cosmo? Other alicorns? Really?”
“Uhuh. They live in Skyros.”
“Wow.”
For the following hours, they talked more, Sweetie telling more about her Equestria without revealing about her organization. When noon arrived, Spike cooked them a meal. Eventually, Twilight arrived yelling, “Is she still here?!”
Sweetie Void waved at her. “Yes, I’m still here. Hello Twilight, I’m Sweetie Void.”
Twilight, who was still an unicorn, stared at her. “So it’s true. A real visitor from an alternate Equestria! I can’t believe it!”
“Hey Twilight!” Spike said. “Guess what! In her Equestria, you are an alicorn too!”
“What, really?!”
“Woah, slow down, Spike. She is already overwhelmed by my presence,” Sweetie Void said. “Yes, Twilight, in my Equestria, you are an alicorn. And you have your own castle. No, I will not tell you how it happened. I’m not even sure if it will happen here with Equestria being here instead of there and Celestia focusing on humanity.”
“Me? An alicorn? Uh… Wow… Am I a good princess?”
“Yes, you do very well despite what you think. If an Equestria I visited, you even take over after Celestia and Luna retire. If this isn’t proof that you are good…”
Twilight was now shaking. Before she could say anything, Sweetie Void continued. “So, let’s change the subject before you explode. I want to talk to Celestia. Can you present me to her? And can you gather your friends? I’m sure that they will want to be there to hear what I want to say.”
“V-very well. Spike, take a letter.”
So Twilight made Spike write a letter to Celestia to warn her about Sweetie Void. Once done, she left, followed by Sweetie Void who told goodbye to Spike. One by one, they gathered the Element Bearers who were very surprised to see Sweetie Void, especially Rarity.
“My sister is an alicorn?!”
“I’m sure there are alternate universes out there where you all are alicorns. Everything is possible in the Omniverse,” Sweetie Void said.
Once they were all gathered, Sweetie Void teleported to Canterlot, before the castle. They entered it, and before long, they reached the Throne Room where Celestia and Luna awaited them, warned in advance by a guard. Celestia was her usual serene self, but Luna looked shocked to see Sweetie Void.
The Element Bearers all bowed to them.
“Rise, my little ponies. Welcome, visitor,” Celestia said.
“Hello Celestia, Luna. As you can see, I’m an alternate version of Sweetie Belle. To make it simpler to differentiate me from the local Sweetie Belle, call me Sweetie Void.”
“I see. Well, Sweetie Void, what did you want to talk with me about?” Celestia asked.
“Well, as you can guess, I’m from an Equestria that never moved to Equus. I was quite surprised when I arrived on this world to discover Equestria here. Apparently, it’s to help the humans?”
Sweetie Void began to read Celestia’s mind.
“Yes. With the help of a mirror, I observed them and their world and saw all the suffering they were causing to themselves and their world. I couldn’t remain there and do nothing, so I transported Equestria here so us ponies could offer our help to them.”
“And I guess that the equestrian realm limit expanding was a surprise, uh?”
“And discovering that magic is harmful to humans...”
Sweetie Void internally smirked. “Well then, why not send Equestria back to Equus?”
“Leaving would mean leaving the humans in their path to destruction. I still want to help them.”
“By ponifying them, yes, I saw. But do you know that ponification brainwashes them?”
Celestia remained calm, but many of the mares around frowned.
“I wouldn’t call that brainwashing,” Celestia said. “They are just getting the pony mindset. It comes with being a pony.”
Sweetie Void nodded. “Yes, they become ponies, and suddenly, they hate everything about humans, even the ones forced to ponify.”
“They just see what is wrong with their former species.”
“Ponies aren’t better.”
Gasps around.
“Sombra. He was a pony, and yet he did horrible things. And at the time of the three tribes, the ponies constantly warred with each other. I also have a friend who encountered and fought ponies who committed atrocities. Black Beard? Leyla Rahfa? Ring any bells? Ponies are capable of the same atrocities as the humans. We aren’t that different from them. I saw humans turned into ponies who remained themselves, and vice versa.”
“Sweetie Belle! Don’t say such things!” Rarity shouted.
Sweetie Void looked at her sadly, then back at Celestia who remained stoic. She grinned. “The serum isn’t just made to turn the humans into ponies, it’s made to turn them into perfect mindless harmonious puppets. Humans aren’t harmed by magic. I know humans who can use magic and who came to Equestria and yet didn’t die. There is something in the limit between the Equestria realm and Earth realm that destroys everything human. Some magical barrier created by somepony very powerful, maybe? Yes, Celestia. You totally made it so the humans would have no other choices but to become your puppets or die. You didn’t come here to help them, you came here to exterminate them! And Twilight is your accomplice! What do you have to say, Celestia?! Don’t try to lie to me, I read your mind!”
By now, almost everypony in the room was glaring at Sweetie Void.
After a long moment of silence, Celestia’s mask fell.
“What else could I have done? These beasts were destroying themselves and their world. I’m just making sure that they can reach harmony.”
“By depriving them of their free will! Also, you could have simply, I don’t know, offered your hoof in friendship? You know? Magic of Friendship! That’s your whole schtick!”
“They wouldn’t have accepted it.”
“Don’t put all the humans in the same basket! Many would have accepted it! Humanity is capable of horrible things, but also of great things! Yes, that wouldn’t have stopped all the bad things, but it would have been a good start! You imagine how much magic would have helped? I don’t even need to! That is exactly what happened with other versions of Earth that joined my Equestria! Magic and technology are made to work together! And yes, I’m friends with humans. Lots of humans.”
“How can you be friends with them?!” Rainbow Dash yelled.
“Because, contrary to some ponies, I’m not a stuck up bitch who thinks myself superior!”
“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity yelled.
“So, here is what we will do. We will give the ponified back their free will. We will turn the ones who want to back into humans. Then, you will either choose to return to Equus or remain here and help the humans for real. Am I understood?”
“And what will you do if I refuse?” Celestia asked.
Sweetie Void smirked. “Then I will force you.” At that, she cracked her neck. “I will get to punch my first Celestia.”
“That’s enough!” Luna shouted. “I don’t allow you to threaten my sister!”
Sweetie Void’s eyes turned black, and the shadows in the room began to move. “I don’t need your permission, number two.”
The Element Bearers winced.
Now, Celestia was the one getting angry. “Don’t dare say that to her!”
“Well then, what are you waiting for? Attack me. Don’t hold back because I am a filly. This would be your last error.”
Luna was the one firing a beam first. Sweetie Void inhaled, and the beam entered her mouth, disappearing, to everyone’s surprise.
Rainbow Dash was the first one to recover, and she went to punch Sweetie Void.
“Rainbow! No!” Applejack shouted, too late.
In a flash, Sweetie Void disappeared, avoiding Rainbow Dash’s hoof, and she reappeared before her, punching her on the head. The pegasus lost teeth and was sent crashing into the wall hard.
“Always so hot headed, Rainbow Crash.”
Guards began to come, but Sweetie Void easily knocked them out with a beam in the head.
A lasso was suddenly wrapped around the filly. Sweetie Void grinned at Applejack before she grabbed it and began to move it around, lifting the mare effortlessly.
“Yeeeeeee…” She violently slammed Applejack on the ground. “haw!”
Pinkie Pie took out her party cannon, but before she could fire, it was plugged by a cork.
“No fireworks inside.”
Twilight was next, firing beams after beams. Sweetie didn’t even try to dodge them, she tanked them without flinching, yawning.
“What is this peashooter? Here’s a real beam!”
Sweetie Void fired a giant beam that totally engulfed Twilight and sent her crashing into the wall next to Rainbow Dash.
“ENOUGH!!!” Luna yelled with the Royal Canterlot Voice before she materialized magic swords and sent them at Sweetie Void.
She stopped them with her bare hooves.
“You know I already defeated you in my universe? And that was back when I was an unicorn.”
Luna gulped. Then, the shadows got out of the group and wrapped themselves around her before they brought her into a large shadow, not even able to scream.
Celestia’s mane and tail turned into fire.
“I will stop you!!!”
She fired a giant beam, even larger than the one Sweetie fired at Twilight, and easily as hot as the surface of the sun.
Sweetie Void fired a single, small, very concentrated black beam that pierced right through Celestia’s beam, destroying it, and hit the mare on the horn, breaking it, making her yell in intense pain.
“Discord!” Fluttershy suddenly yelled. “Help!”
The draconequus himself appeared in the room.
“Yes, dear?”
He then looked around and saw the situation. When he saw Sweetie Void, he gulped.
“Will you try to stop me, Spirit of Chaos?”
Discord gulped again. “Well… For friendship, right?”
“You know I’m the one who is right, right?”
Discord sighed. He then raised his fingers, ready to snap. But then, Sweetie Void touched him, and suddenly, she sucked the magic right out of him, leaving him powerless.
Sweetie Void looked at a crying Rarity. “Will you try something too?”
Rarity stepped back, scared beyond anything. That saddened Sweetie Void, but she quickly got her resolve back.
“The Elements!” Celestia yelled. “Go search for the Elements!”
Beside her, the shadows spat a very beaten up Luna.
“No need,” Sweetie Void said before she teleported the Elements of Harmony into the room, right before the six Bearers. “Go on, fire your rainbow beam at me.”
The mares didn’t lose time and put on the Elements. They activated their power and fired the rainbow toward Sweetie Void who didn’t move. The rainbow circled her…
And then disappeared, to everyone’s shock and horror.
“As expected. I’m either too powerful even for them to work, or the Elements know that I’m right, or the Bearers became unworthy. I’m guessing the three at once.”
“No…” Twilight couldn’t stand anymore. “No…!”
“You are bringing a species to extinction. What did you expect? There is nothing harmonious in what you are doing. You have lost your way, ex-Element Bearers.”
As if to confirm what Sweetie Void said, the Elements floated from the Bearers and turned into stone orbs, like when the mares found them the first time, with the Element of Magic disappearing totally.
“No!” Twilight yelled.
“You reap what you sow. So, still refusing?”
The ex-Element Bearers and the princesses, defeated, could only surrender.
In the end, they had to do what Sweetie Void ordered. Celestia having lost her horn, Sweetie was the one removing the anti-human barrier. Celestia, under the filly’s watchful eyes, explained everything and surrendered to the humans. Twilight modified the serum so the humans weren’t brainwashed by it anymore and created a new one to turn the ponified back. The ponified had their free will returned and many asked to be turned back. In the end, the ponies asked to return to Equus. They didn’t want anything to do with the humans, and the humans were too wary of the ponies anyway after Celestia confessed.
Sweetie still planned to send help to the humans so they didn’t end up self-destructing.
Before she left, Sweetie Void gave his magic back to Discord and captured Tirek and Chrysalis.
“I will return to Earth eventually. If I discover that you somehow returned there and restarted your plan…”
Sweetie didn’t need to say more before she jumped into her rift.
Asura was walking on some path, with no real destination in mind, when a rift opened before him and out of it came Sweetie Void. The filly immediately spotted him.
“Wow! I feel a lot of power in you!”
“Who are you?” Asura asked.
“I’m Sweetie Void, nice to meet you!”
“Asura.”
“Say, uh… I haven’t gotten a proper challenge in a while, and I can feel that you will give me one. So, do you want to fight?”
“... I can see in your eyes that you aren’t innocent despite your appearance. Very well.”
“Thanks!”
So the two took position, a few meters from each other and facing their opponent.
Then, after a few seconds, Asura was the one opening the fight, charging toward Sweetie. Because of her small size, he could only try to kick her. Sweetie Void avoided it by flying up before she punched Asura in the face, giving a small combo that eventually sent him on his back.
Asura quickly got up and attempted to punch Sweetie right away only for her to teleport. Asura didn’t let himself get caught off guard and moved away immediately, avoiding a beam from behind. In return, he punched the air and sent a projectile of Mantra energy that hit Sweetie, opening her for Asura to charge toward her and punch her. One punch was enough to send her flying.
She quickly recovered however and flew back toward Asura to punch him only for him to jump and to kick her. Asura then fired more energy projectiles after landing that Sweetie tried to avoid before she teleported. She appeared right above Asura and headbutted him. Asura countered the headbutt with his own headbutt, making the two clash. The demigod eventually grabbed the filly and threw her at the ground before he violently stomped on her.
Sweetie turned her fur into spikes, forcing Asura to remove his foot, before the alicorn fired a beam at his head to make him step back. She then flew up to face him and breathed fire, burning and blinding Asura. Despite it, Asura attempted to punch her only for him to miss before she grabbed him arm and slammed him on the ground. Asura quickly rolled aside to avoid metallic Sweetie crashing on him.
Asura got up and tried to stomp on her, and Sweetie teleported just before Asura to punch him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Asura quickly jumped backward and returned with several punches of his own. Sweetie avoided the first one, but got hit by the following ones ending with an uppercut that sent her high in the sky. Asura then fired Mantra projectiles at her.
Sweetie Void tanked them and called her whip before she teleported back to Asura and began to attack him with it, forcing him to use his arms to shield himself from it. Asura eventually caught the whip only for it to divide into its ten cannons mode which began to fly around. Sweetie had to punch Asura hard to force him to release the piece he still held.
The cannons then began to fire at Asura from all around him. Various projectiles were fired, from basic beams to ice shards, passing by lightning bolts and fireballs. Asura jumped away to escape the onslaught of projectiles, but the cannons followed him while Sweetie Void gathered darkness into a large ball that she threw at him.
Asura growled, then, suddenly, four arms grew, giving him six arms. With them, he caught the darkness ball and sent it toward the sky before he fired Mantra projectiles (six at once) at the cannons, making them stop firing for a moment as they were pushed back. Asura then charged toward Sweetie and readied a punch that the filly answered with her own punch, resulting in a terrible clash that created a shockwave.
More clashes followed, Asura attempting to punch Sweetie again and again only for the filly to constantly counter him, and he was even forced to use an arm to shield himself from beams she was firing from her horn. The cannons then returned and began to fire at him from behind. He decided to not care and continued to try to punch Sweetie Void.
Eventually, Asura managed to pass Sweetie’s defense and to punch her, sending her flying through a tree. Suddenly, Sweetie Void teleported while keeping her momentum and appeared right beside Asura, punching him hard on the cheek and sending him flying just as far. Sweetie then levitated the tree she crashed through and hurled it toward the demigod. Asura was able to land on his feet, sliding for a while. He then saw the tree coming and quickly jumped aside. Sweetie appeared behind him, and Asura immediately turned around to punch her only for her to teleport again.
Sweetie Void repeatedly teleported around Asura while the cannons arrived and resumed firing at him. Asura stopped them like before, and Sweetie used the opening to fire a giant beam that engulfed Asura and sent him flying again. Asura still quickly managed to put his feet back on ground while being pushed by the beam and was eventually able to fight it before he made it explode by compressing it with his six arms. Beside him was a boulder that he picked up just as Sweetie teleported beside him, and he slammed the boulder on her, crushing her under it. A few moments later, the boulder exploded.
Sweetie Void floated up, her ten cannons turning into double beam sword mode around her. Her own hooves turned into blades. Finally, she resumed her assault on Asura, slashing with her weapons. Asura tried to avoid them, but there were too many, and he found himself slashed repeatedly. He managed to punch a few of the cannons, and even Sweetie herself, but he still received a lot of damage.
Finally, he jumped away and spread his arms. Suddenly, countless arms appeared behind him. All the arms then merged into his two primary arms, the four others included, leaving only these two which glowed. Then, in a flash, the arms were suddenly hulkier.
Sweetie’s swords went to attack him again, but to Sweetie’s surprise, the arms released bursts of Mantra that propelled Asura, allowing to maneuver around the swords to avoid them while approaching Sweetie Void at a speed that took her off guard. She was punched, and the next instant, she was a speck in the horizon. She ended up crashing into a mountain many kilometers away.
When she flew out of the crater that she created, she grinned.
Already, she could see Asura flying toward her, another punch ready. She readied her own punch. The following clash blew apart the mountain she crashed into, the other mountains around, and a huge chunk of the planet.
To Asura’s surprise, Sweetie was the one overpowering him and sending him flying. She teleported her swords to her, put some of them back into cannon mode, and went after Asura, firing lasers at him from her cannons and from the air. Asura maneuvered to avoid them, sending Mantra projectiles at the cannons and the approaching swords, before he was blasted by Sweetie who teleported after him to intercept him and blast him again. She repeated it a couple of times before she teleported a last time above Asura and smashed him, sending him crashing through the planet.
Sweetie was already at the other side, ready to attack him again, but Asura actually came out of the planet charging right at her and he grabbed her before he threw her. He then propelled himself after her, catching up to her, and used her momentum to give her a violent punch that sent her crashing into the moon, part of which blew apart.
Asura went after her and joined her inside the moon, and the following clash totally blew it up.
The two flew among what remained, moving around, clashing again, sending country-sized boulders at the other. Sweetie didn’t even bother with her cannons anymore.
Eventually, Asura decided to go above, and his chest opened, revealing a reactor that released a huge quantity of Mantra. The next instant, his four other arms rturned, just as hulky as the primary ones.
A storm of punches fell on Sweetie Void who materialized chield fists to counter it. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of punches were exchanged, each blows sending shockwaves that brock apart what remained of the moon even more to the point that part of it was reduced to dust.
Sweetie Void suddenly cloned herself, creating a single clone that attacked Asura from behind, opening him to a barrage of punches from Sweetie Void with a final one that sent Asura crashing back through the planet again, blowing apart another chunk of it.
At the other side, Sweetie was ready with a mountain which she threw at Asura as soon as he got out, the demigod easily breaking it apart with his punches. Sweetie Void then teleported behind Asura, grabbed him around the waist, and piledrived him into the ground at the sped of sound.
Before she could get away or follow it with something else, Asura grabbed her by the head, keeping her in place as he got up, and gave her at least one thousand punches with his five other arms before he released her and sent her flying with a last punch. When she was just a speck in the horizon, Asura went after her.
The two ended up flying all around the planet, clashing again and again. At a moment, Sweetie created a storm to attack Asura with winds going at hundreds of miles per hour and supertornadoes. Asura answered with a halo that sent multicolored projectiles of Mantra. At another, she lifted a whole ocean to throw it at him in the form of a titanic dragon. In return, Asura threw her into an awakened volcano. Eventually, Sweetie Void was the one sent crashing through the planet. When she got out of it, she sent tons and tons of magma at the approaching Asura.
Finally, she called her ten cannons and charged her Ultimate Doom Laser, successfully hitting Asura with it. The demigod was sent far into space by it.
But he was still conscious, and with a scream of rage, his chest opened, and the reactor unleashed an astronomical quantity of Mantra.
Suddenly, Asura was even bigger than the planet itself with gray skin, still with his six hulking arms. A gray halo was also present behind him.
Immediately, he went to punch Sweetie Void who was still on the surface of the planet. A fist the size of a continent approached her faster than expected for someone Asura’s size, and she found herself fighting to push it back to not be crushed. The ground was breaking under her, lava was coming out under her hooves.
Her eyes, mane, and tail left place to pure darkness, and she was able to push the fist back. She then flew toward Asura’s head, covering the distance in the blink of an eye, and punched him, knocking him back.
In return, Asura headbutted her, sending the filly through the planet again and far, far, far into space. Asura then transformed his halo to use it as a jet booster, allowing him to fly and to go after her at unfathomable speed, reaching her in just a few seconds. As soon as he saw her, he began to fire Mantra projectiles able to destroy planets and stars.
Sweetie teleported repeatedly to avoid them, then began to sing.
“What were your piercing eyes looking at? What was echoing in your trembling heart?”
She then cloned herself, creating hundreds of clones that scattered and surrounded Asura like a swarm of microbe-sized flies. One of Asura’s projectiles hit one of them, and the clone was blown up.
Sweetie Void and the clones began to attack Asura from all sides, and Asura countered by spinning with his arms, swating many of them, sending them light years away into space. Asura targeted them with his projectiles, blowing them up.
The real Sweetie Void fired UDL after UDL, powerful enough to blow up a star, and yet, they barely made Asura flinch, not that he didn’t receive damage from them, far from it. Asura actually decided to not mind the clones and to attack the real Sweetie Void to stop her, attempting to punch her, but she teleported to avoid it.
Asura blew up a few more clones before he found Sweetie Void again and punched her next UDL just as she fired it, destroying it. He then punched her and her cannons in one go, destroying them while sending Sweetie far away, toward a planet. Asura sent a Mantra projectile at it, blowing it up. Sweetie Void teleported behind him however and joined her clones in attacking him.
Asura was constantly knocked around by them, but it didn’t stop him from blowing up more of them after sending them away. The clones’ number dropped rapidly. However, he was taking a lot of damage.
They approached another planet, and Sweetie Void decided to use the occasion to teleport to it and use her magic to throw it toward Asura. He easily blew it up like the previous one however.
Asura was starting to breathe hard. He still continued to blow up clones and managed to punch the real Sweetie Void, sending her away to fire Mantra projectiles at her. The real Sweetie Void suddenly grew in size until she was as big as Asura, allowing her to tank the projectiles. She then flew back toward Asura to punch him, only to clash with his own fist, again. The two then exchanged punches again, for several minutes, until they ended up punching each other at the same time, sending each other flying.
They then fired projectiles at each other, the projectiles destroying each others. For many more minutes, it continued. All the while, Sweetie’s remaining clones continued to attack him.
Sweetie Void eventually shrunk back to her normal size and teleported. Asura searched around, but then, he felt an explosion inside his mouth, followed by more explosions inside him. He ended up spitting orange blood.
Eventually, Sweetie Void teleported out and fired a giant beam at Asura’s head.
It was finally too much for Asura who lost consciousness. The Mantra escaped him, and he returned to his normal size, losing his arms and only leaving his two primary arms not hulky anymore.
Sweetie Void stopped singing and returned to normal, grinning. She immediately healed Asura and teleported the both of them back on Gaia.
“One of the best fights of my life,” she said. “Thank you, Asura. I will remember it. Mmh... I think that I should rebuild the moon.”
High in the night sky, after one millennium, a group of ten stars aligned.
That was what a cloaked stallion awaited. Seeing the stars, he chuckled.
“Finally.” He turned around to look at more cloaked ponies behind him. “After all this time, we can finally make them pay. Let’s bring Him to our world.”
All the ponies nodded, smirking.
Around them, the wind howled, announcing the arrival of a terrible event.
A yellow earth pony filly with a red mane and tail and a pink bow on her hair was rummaging through a garbage can, searching for precious food and… Jackpot!
“Hey! Pizza! Nice!”
She took the pizza slice and added it on a garbage can lid that she used as a tray to transport what she found. So far, she had good luck. She got a half eaten apple, a full daisy sandwich, and now, a pizza slice. She didn’t even have to go look at the garbage of a restaurant which was risky. The chefs never liked seeing her taking their food for free, even if that food was wasted in the garbage. In Manehattan, it was the law of the jungle.
Once she was done, she went deeper into the alley to eat in peace, far from the judging stares of the many pedestrians in the street.
It was hard to live in the streets, but hey, Good Will had to do with what she had. It was better than the orphanage she escaped from.
She quickly ate what she gathered. Taking her time was a bad idea. Another street pony could come and take her food.
Just as she finished eating, she suddenly heard screams coming from the street. Curious, she left the lid behind and moved to the entrance of the alley to see what was going on, remaining careful.
Here, she saw ponies running away from blue ghosts attacking them! There were easily two dozen of them in total!
She quickly hid behind one of the garbage cans she rummaged earlier. The alley she was in was a dead end, the only way to leave was by the entrance, where she was, so she would expose herself to the ghosts. She had no choice but to remain hidden.
“What is going on? Where do they come from?” she wondered as she watched the ghosts.
As the minutes passed and the ghosts spread all over the street to cause chaos even when nopony was left, Good Will remained stuck behind the garbage can. She was absolutely terrified. She knew it was only a matter of time before at least one of the ghosts came to the alley.
What she feared happened. One of the ghosts threw the garbage can behind which she hid. She was found.
Upon seeing her, the ghost grinned and raised a hoof, ready to punch her.
But suddenly, a siren approached rapidly, gaining the ghost’s attention, and also the attention of all the other ghosts. Then, a weird vehicle that seemed to be some kind of carriage not pulled by ponies entered the street and screeched into a halt in the middle of it, among the ghosts, the wheels leaving black traces behind them. Painted on the side of the vehicle was a white ghost surrounded by a red circle with a red bar crossing it.
The two front doors then opened, and out of the vehicles came two stallions. A green earth pony with a blue mane and tail, and an orange pegasus with a red mane and tail, each wearing some gray uniform with the same symbol as on the vehicle.
At the back of the vehicle, which was bigger than the front, two more doors opened, revealing two more stallions. A gray unicorn with a darker gray mane and tail and glasses, and a brown earth pony with a black mane and tail, the two also wearing the uniform.
The two took two red machines with a pipe and passed them to the other two who quickly joined them, then took two more machines. The four stallions then put them on their back before they grabbed the pipes, holes pointed toward the ghosts.
“When was the last time we saw so many ghosts?” the green stallion asked.
“Never,” the unicorn answered. “This is the biggest paranormal activity registered in Equestria since forever.”
“And I thought that haunted mansion had a lot of ghosts…” the brown stallion said.
“And again, in that mansion, the ghosts came two at a time at most. Here, this is six versus one. I don’t like our odds,” the pegasus said.
“Oh don’t worry, Dark Vision. With these babies on our back, we should be good despite that. Just avoid being surrounded,” the green one replied.
“Guys, there is a civilian on the site,” the brown one said upon spotting Good Will.
The green one groaned. “Fighting while protecting a civilian will suck.”
The ghost about to attack Good Will lost interest in the stallions and prepared to attack the filly again. She screamed.
The pegasus, Dark Vision, immediately flew toward her and pointed the hole of his machine’s pipe toward the ghost before he pressed a button. The next instant, a vortex came out of the pipe and began to suck up the ghost.
Meanwhile, the three others began to do the same with the approaching ghosts.
After a few seconds of struggling, the ghost that had been about to attack Good Will disappeared inside the pipe.
“Ah! I guess I’m a hero!” Dark Vision said.
“Watch out behind you, mister!” Good Will yelled.
The pegasus immediately turned around only to be punched in the face by another ghost, almost causing him to crash on Good Will.
Dark Vision groaned, his eyes spinning. “So much for a hero…”
Good Will looked at the recovering pegasus, then at the approaching ghost who readied another punch. Acting quickly, she grabbed the machine’s pipe, pointed the hole toward the ghost, and pressed the same button that Dark Vision pressed earlier, sucking up the ghost.
The ghost was struggling and was actually beginning to start dragging Dark Vision and Good Will behind him, but the filly didn’t stop and kept her hold on the pipe. Dark Vision then fully recovered, saw what was going on, and took hold of the pipe too just before the ghost finally disappeared inside it.
“Hey. Not bad, little one. I guess you are my hero.”
Good Will grinned at him. “Thanks!”
Dark Vision then saw another ghost approaching and quickly got up. “Remain close to me!”
“Ah’ll watch yer back!”
One by one, the ghosts were captured, and before long, the street was entirely cleaned of paranormal activity. The green stallion was the one who captured the last ghost.
“So, who won?” he asked.
“What?” the unicorn asked.
“Who is the one who captured the most ghost? I counted seven.”
“I don’t know, I haven’t counted,” the unicorn replied.
“Me too,” the brown earth pony said.
The green one shrugged. “Then, I guess I win by default.”
“Hey guys! Come here! I think you will want to see that!” Dark Vision called them, Good Will at his side, the two looking down on the ground.
The three stallions approached and quickly saw why Dark Visions called them.
On the street was a glowing symbol, the skull of a ram.
“What is it?” the brown stallion asked.
The unicorn carefully touched the symbol, then studied it with his horn. “Mmh… It’s magic. Right in the ground. It’s not painted. It’s as if the symbol just magically appeared here.”
“What do you think it means?” Dark Vision asked.
“That’s a very good question, and I don’t think that this symbol appearing in this street which was just targeted by a large number of ghosts is just a coincidence,” the unicorn said.
The stallions thought in silence. Then, Dark Vision looked at Good Will.
“Oh, right, we should probably search your parents, little one.”
“Uh…” Good Will moved away from the stallions. “Ah’m an orphan.”
“Oh…”
“And no, Ah don’t want ta go ta the orphanage, so… Ah guess Ah’ll go. Thanks fer saving me.”
“What? Are you saying that you live in the streets? Wait!” Dark Vision shouted as the filly began to run away. Thinking quickly, he yelled, “Then come with us!”
That stopped Good Will right away.
“What?!” the three other stallions shouted.
“We can’t let her in the streets,” Dark Vision said.
The green stallion sighed. “You and your big heart, Darky. We aren’t a charity house.”
“Let’s just send her to an orphanage,” the unicorn said, making Good Will step back.
“Look guys. Going to an orphanage terrifies her. Something must have happened in her previous one. How about… we take her as our new recruit? She helped me capture a ghost, you know? That’s a sign.”
“How did you end up having a filly helping you capture a ghost?” the brown stallion asked.
Dark Vision blushed. “One took me by surprise from behind.”
“So that’s why you have one heck of a shiner,” the green stallion said. “Darky, I expected better from you. I guess you still need training,” he joked.
“None of us trained,” Dark Vision deadpanned.
The unicorn sighed in exasperation and shook his head before he looked at Good Will, smiling gently at her. “What is your name?”
“Ah’m Good Will.”
“Well, Good Will, what do you think of joining us?”
Good Will thought a bit, then shrugged. “Ah guess that fighting ghosts would beat remaining in the streets. Not that it was that bad.”
The unicorn chuckled. “Then I’m Gray Matter.” He pointed at the green earth pony. “This is Soul Speaker.” He pointed at the brown one. “Summer Road. And finally, you already know Dark Vision. And we are-”
“The Parahunters!” Soul Speaker shouted while taking a pose. Gray rolled his eyes at being interrupted like that.
Good Will giggled. “Nice ta meet ya.”
A large shutter door opened, allowing the vehicle, the Spectromobile, to enter what had once been a fire station. Once it stopped, the Parahunters, including their new recruit, got out and unloaded their ghost-trapping machines, the Spectrovacuums.
“So, will the ghosts remain trapped in these… uh… vacuums?” Good Will asked.
“No, we have a vault for them,” Gray Matter answered. “In the basement. Since you will be working with us, we will show you.”
As they advanced, they passed beside a desk with a yellow unicorn mare with red glasses and a red mane and tail. Good Will saw that she had a desk Cutie Mark.
“So, how did it go?” she asked.
“Ah, my dear Sunny Feather. It went very well! Except Dark Vision who got a shiner,” Soul Speaker said.
“You won’t let it go, uh?” Dark Vision stated.
Soul Speaker grinned at him. “Never.”
“Give him a break, Soul. He was by himself protecting somepony. It wasn’t easy,” Summer Road said. “Speaking of, we have a new recruit.”
“Really?” Sunny Feather said before she finally spotted Good Will. “Ooh! What a cutie! Hello, I’m Sunny Feather! The Parahunters’ secretary! Welcome!
“Nice ta meet ya, miss. Ah’m Good Will.”
Sunny Feather looked back at the Parahunters. “Isn’t she a bit young to hunt ghosts?”
“She helped capture a ghost. She doesn’t have her Cutie Mark yet, but it may be her future talent,” Summer Road said.
“And her parents have agreed?”
“Uh…”
“Ah don’t have parents. Ah’m an orphan,” Good Will said.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, dear.”
“It turns out that she is a street rat, so she doesn’t have any guardian to ask permission from. So will give her a job, and a home. That’s our good action of the day,” Soul Speaker said.
“In addition to capturing ghosts and protecting innocents from them,” Gray Matter said.
“Yeah, in addition to that.”
The mare smiled at the filly. “Then I’m sure you will love it here. And Misty will be happy to have a playmate.”
“Misty?” Good Will asked.
Suddenly, a yellow blur arrived and rapidly flew around Good Will with gurgling sounds. The blur eventually stopped before Good Will, revealing itself to be the ghost of a newborn unicorn filly with yellow fur and a blown mane.
“That’s Misty,” Summer Road said fondly.
The ghost rubbed her cheek against Good Will’s, making her giggle. “Hello you.”
Misty gurgled back a baby talk, as if to say “Hello” too.
“As you can see, Misty is the ghost of a stillborn filly,” Gray Matter said. “We found her spreading havoc in a hospital. We couldn’t bring ourselves to trap her, she was just playing, she didn’t know better, so we took her in and we try to teach her how to be a better ghost.”
“It’s not easy…” Summer Road said.
“She is pretty much our mascot,” Soul Speaker said. “Our diabete-inducing mascot.”
“And it looks like she already loves you,” Dark Vision said.
“Luv ya,” Misty repeated.
“Aww, Ah love ya too,” Good Will said, trying to pat Misty only for her hoof to pass through.
“Ok, can we move on before I start to need insulin?” Soul Speaker said.
Gray Matter cleared his throat. “Yes. We still have to put the ghosts we captured in the vault.”
The Parahunters moved to the basement, into what seemed to be a workshop full of inventions. Among them, against the wall, was a large red metallic box with a small socle in a cavity.
“This is the vault in which we keep all the ghosts we capture,” Gray Matter presented. He then went on to give a scientific explanation of how it worked, which Good Will didn’t understand, until he was stopped by Soul Speaker clearing his throat.
“Yes, thank you Gray Matter, but I fear that Good Will is too young to understand you, despite all her… good will.”
Everypony groaned, especially Good Will.
“Come on, it was a good one.”
Dark Vision hit him on the back of the head. “No. You should be ashamed.”
“Anyway. Let’s put the ghosts in the vault,” Gray Matter said before he took out a blue crystal from his Spectrovacuum and put it on the socle. He then pressed a button, and a door closed over the cavity before the vault began to emit a purring sound. Because of it, Good Will couldn’t see what was going on with the crystal, but after a few seconds, the purring sound stopped, the door opened, and Gray Matter took the crystal.
One by one, the other Parahunters did the same thing.
“Here we go,” Summer Road said once he recovered his crystal. “So, I guess that it’s time to give Good Will a tour of the place.”
“Since Dark Vision is the one who invited her, he should be the one giving her the tour,” Soul Speaker said.
Dark Vision shrugged. “Fine. I agree.”
And so, Dark Vision led Good Will around in the ancient fire station, presenting the day room, the fitness room, the dorm, and so on. Good Will even got to test sliding down the pole to go from the second floor to the first floor.
“So, what do you think?” Dark Vision asked.
“Ah think that it’ll be nice here.”
Dark Vision grinned and ruffled her mane. After that, the filly was left to do what she wanted.
She decided to return to the basement, to the workshop. She was curious about all these inventions there.
Nopony was in the workshop when she arrived. The Parahunters were resting a bit after their mission. So the filly was left to do what she wanted. Misty, however, followed her in.
“Curious too?”
Misty began to look around. After looking at her a bit, Good Will began to follow her example.
“What do ya think all these inventions are?”
Of course, the foal couldn’t answer, but Good Will still liked to talk to her to fill the silence.
Good Will saw what looked like a horseshoe to entirely cover the hoof and even part of the leg. It was too big for her.
“What is it?”
She had to jump on the table to reach it, careful to not walk on a small cardboard box and various other objects present, including a nail beside an empty bottle. She then took it and studied it, pressing a button on the side. Suddenly, the bottom of the shoe began to glow. She pressed the button again, and it stopped glowing. She placed the shoe back at its place, wondering what it was for.
She heard Misty gurgling and looked back, seeing the foal press some buttons on what looked like a cannon.
“Uuh… Ah don’t think ya should touch it, Misty.”
Misty looked at her, but then resumed pressing buttons, giggling. Suddenly, the cannon began to move by itself, pointing toward Good Will. Just as she started to panic, the cannon fired some kind of purple beam, and the next instant, Good Will was gone.
Misty looked at where Good Will had been and approached curiously, looking around to see where her new friend went. She then saw something on the table and looked closer, finally finding Good Will who was now the size of a bug.
Good Will looked around, not knowing what happened. For a moment, she thought that she had been teleported to another place, but then, she saw a familiar cardboard box, now much bigger than her. Looking more, she recognized the horseshoe further away, now huge.
“It shrunk me?!”
She then saw Misty’s face looking closely at her. The foal was now a giant compared to her.
Misty cooed, and Good Will had to cover her ears, the sound amplified to her.
“Misty!” Good Will yelled. “Turn me back to normal! Go press the buttons on that cannon again! Or bring somepony to do it!”
Misty cooed again, then giggled, not flying away.
Good Will groaned. “Ah guess Ah’ll just wait.”
Having nothing better to do, she began to explore the table. She looked at the bits around, passed beside the empty bottle with the nail, then approached the cardboard box.
Suddenly, as she passed before the box, a spider jumped out of it, trying to bite her. Used to danger appearing without warning, the filly reacted immediately and rolled away, avoiding the bite, before she bucked the head of the spider, making it screech in pain. The spider then tried to impale her with its legs, but Good Will ran under it, then away from it toward the nail beside the bottle. The spider followed her to attack her again with its legs, but the filly grabbed the nail and used it to deflect the legs like a sword. When she got an opening, she approached the head and impaled it with the nail. With a loud screech, the spider fell, squirmed for a few seconds, and stopped moving, dead.
Good Will stepped back, breathing out, before she sat down. Misty, not far, giggled again and applauded.
“Yeah, it must have been a good show fer ya, uh?”
At this moment, Gray Matter, now without his uniform, entered the room, hearing Misty giggle.
“Misty, I told you to not enter my workshop.”
Misty turned toward him and gurgled something.
“What are you doing there anyway? Be careful with the horseshoe. It can shock you.”
Gray Matter approached, then finally spotted Good Will behind her on the table. The filly was jumping and waving to gain his attention.
“What?! Good Will? What-?” He looked between her and the cannon. “Did you use the shrinking cannon on yourself?”
Good Will said something in return, but Gray Matter couldn’t hear her. He sighed and began to press some buttons on the cannons.
“Let me just reverse it. Misty, out of the way.”
Even if she didn’t understand him, Misty moved out of the way anyway, approaching him to look at him as he pressed the buttons.
Eventually, the cannon fired a beam right at Good Will, making her grow to her normal size. She sighed in relief.
“Oh, thank Celestia.”
“You should be careful. You could have been stuck in that size if I hadn’t found you.”
“It’s not mah fault! Ah was just looking at the horseshoe when Misty turned the cannon on and shrunk me!”
Gray Matter glared at Misty who giggled. He then sighed. “Misty…”
Good Will jumped down. Finally, she got a good look at Gray Matter’s flank, seeing that his Cutie Mark was a group of three neurons.
“Life isn’t boring with her around, uh?”
“You have no idea. Anyway, it’s good that I found you. I wanted to talk to you about your schooling.”
“As expected, the Parahunters are putting their muzzles in our business. We should deal with them.”
“How?”
“I have an idea. But first, let’s do the second ritual.”
“So, what do you guys think caused such a huge number of ghosts to appear in the middle of a random street?” Dark Vision asked.
“Somepony is responsible. I’m sure of it. That’s what the symbol says,” Summer Road said.
“But how did they manage it?” Soul Speaker said.
“I propose that we return to the street and investigate,” Gray Matter proposed.
The four Parahunters agreed.
Good Will, who was also present, only watched. She still was new and knew nothing about the paranormal, so she felt that it was useless for her to say anything. Let the pro do their work and just follow along.
It also allowed her to see the Parahunters other than Gray Matter for the first time without their uniforms. Thanks to that, she was able to see their Cutie Marks.
Soul Speaker’s was a brain with wiggly lines coming from it.
Dark Vision’s was a ghost, simply.
Summer Road’s was a suitcase filled with paper to the point that some was spilling.
Summer Road’s job before he joined the team sucked, uh?
But then, Sunny Feather entered the room and said, “We have a customer. One Miss Bookworm whose library was suddenly overrun by ghosts. The poor dear looks like she saw a ghost, or several.” She giggled at her joke.
“See, Soul? This is a good joke,” Dark Vision said.
Soul Speaker rolled his eyes. “Let’s just go to Miss Bookworm’s library.”
“Shouldn’t some of us remain behind to investigate the street?” Summer Road asked.
“No. I feel that we will need all of us in this case,” Gray Matter said.
“You think that this will be like in the street?” Good Will asked.
“Yes. Ghosts suddenly appear in some library. I don’t like that.”
Miss Bookworm, a lavender unicorn with a brown dress and glasses, guided the team to her library which was revealed to be a large one. While they drove, she repeated to them what she said to Sunny Feather, how ghosts suddenly appeared and began to mess the library, attacking and scaring the ponies. When she was asked how many ghost there were, she simply answered, “Many!”
For Gray Matter, it was a good enough answer to know that it was indeed like in the street. Maybe even worse.
For Good Will, this was her first mission. She now had her own Spectrovacuum. However, the Parahunters didn’t have a uniform in her size.
She mentally prepared herself. It will apparently be a hard one. Gray Matter actually hesitated bringing her, but Soul Speaker and Dark Vision convinced him that, if the number of ghosts was really like in the street, then it was best to bring everypony.
When they saw how large the library was, they understood that it was a good decision.
“We will have to disperse to cover everything and not miss a single ghost,” Gray Matter said. “Dark Vision and Good Will, first floor. Me and Summer Road, second floor. Soul Speaker, since you are the best of us, you will go alone to the third floor.”
“Aye aye, captain,” Soul Speaker said.
“Of course, if anypony needs help, scream,” Gray Matter said.
“No need to say it,” Summer Road said.
“It’s common sense,” Dark Vision said.
Good Will looked worried. “Will Ah be alright alone?”
“Don’t worry. Dark Vision won’t be far. Like I said, if things go wrong, scream and he will come,” Gray Matter said.
“Okay.”
Once everything was said, they left the vehicle and entered the library, leaving Miss Bookworm outside. Immediately, they followed Gray Matter’s instruction and dispersed, Good Will remaining close to the entrance.
The ghosts didn’t wait long to manifest. Books suddenly flew out of the shelves and went after Good Will who went under a table, using it as a cover. Six ghosts then came out of the shelves and one of them flipped the table. Good Will immediately activated the Spectrovacuum on this ghost and moved it around to hit the other ghosts and get them away. Suddenly, a seventh ghost, an old mare, came and shouted, “Silence in the library!” before she threw a book at Good Will who ducked to avoid it.
Good Will then used the flipped table as a cover while she continued to capture the other ghosts one by one, always targeting the closest one and using it to push the others back, all the while resisting being dragged around.
“When the last blue ghost disappeared inside the Spectrovacuum, the old mare shouted, “I said silence!” with books levitating around her. As she threw them at Good Will one by one, the filly blew air at them, sending them back at the ghost. After three hits on the head, the old mare was stunned and the levitated books dropped, giving the occasion for Good Will to approach and capture her.
Recovering her breath, she said, “Well… That’s not so bad.”
More confident, she began to explore the first floor of the library, capturing a few more ghosts, but never as many as the first wave. Eventually, ghosts stopped coming. Even the sounds of Dark Vision fighting disappeared.
“No more ghosts on mah side!” she yelled.
“Me too! What about you up there?” Dark Vision yelled.
“Nothing to signal anymore!” Gray Matter shouted back.
“Not a ghost since five minutes ago!” Summer Road said.
“Seems like our mission is complete, guys!” Soul Speaker shouted as he walked down the stairs from the third floor.
Good Will turned around a shelf and suddenly stopped, seeing something on the floor.
“Guys! Come here!”
She immediately heard hoofsteps approaching and coming down the stairs. Dark Vision was the first one arriving and immediately saw what she saw.
“Oh…”
One by one, the others arrived and saw too what Goodwill saw.
On the floor was the same magical symbol than back in the street, the skull of a ram.
“As I thought,” Gray Matter said. “The two invasions are linked.”
“How many ghosts did you guys catch?” Soul Speaker asked. “I caught seven.”
“Eight,” Dark Vision answered.
“Eight too,” Summer Road said.
“Ten,” Gray Matter said.
“Thirteen,” Good Will was the last one to answer.
The Parahunters stared at her, Soul Speaker whistling.
“Not bad pipsqueak.”
“That’s more ghosts than back in the street, right?” Summer Road asked.
“Definitely,” Gray Matter answered.
“So… Whatever is happening… It’s getting worse,” Dark Vision said.
“Well, we are in a library. Let’s use the occasion to do some research,” Gray Matter said. “Let’s also warn Miss Bookworm that the library is now safe. She can help us search for what we need.”
Before long, Miss Bookworm was standing before the symbol, looking at it in surprise.
“I know this symbol,” she said. “Follow me.”
The mare guided them through the library to a shelf from which she levitated a book.
On the cover of the book was the exact same symbol.
“Yes, the Logarat civilization,” she said before she gave the book to Gray Matter.
For the following hour, the Parahunters studied it, discovering a lot about this mysterious Logarat civilization.
It was a civilization of ponies who lived here, in Manehattan, before the arrival of the three tribes. When the tribes came, the Logarat immediately attacked them without even trying for diplomatie, forcing the tribes to destroy them. The Logarat worshiped an unknown god. The ponies couldn’t find more about it because Commander Hurricane destroyed the temples and other worshiping places. Apparently, when they discovered what the god was, the Founders decided to make it forgotten, not wanting anypony to worship it.
The Logarat had three temples worshiping this god, and this book had a map that showed their emplacements.
Summer Road pointed at it and exclaimed, “Hey! This is where the library is!”
Gray Matter nodded. “Miss Bookworm, can we have a map of Manehattan, please?”
“Of course, mister.”
Once the mare brought the map, the Parahunters were able to confirm that one of the temples had been where the library now was.
“And that’s the street where ya found me,” Good Will said, pointing at the street which had been a temple in the past.
“And the third temple… Right where the city hall is,” Dark Vision said.
“Coincidence? I think not,” Soul Speaker said. “Now we must really investigate these places. Maybe the underground?”
Everypony nodded.
“We will have to separate into two groups to explore the underground of the street and the library,” Gray Matter said.
“I know a couple of friends who should be able to help you,” Miss Bookworm said. “They studied a lot about the Logarat civilization.”
“It would be very helpful, madam,” Soul Speaker said. “We can’t thank you enough for that. Maybe sharing a drink would help?”
“No thanks. I avoid alcohol.”
The poor stallion didn’t know what to say in return, making Good Will giggle.
Good Will explored the underground of the street with Soul Speaker, Dark Vision, and one of Miss Bookworm’s friends. A dark green unicorn mare with a white mane and an ancient temple as a Cutie Mark, known as Rich Past. They found the place right under the symbol, the same symbol glowing in the floor here.
“So, we randomly search around?” Good Will asked.
Soul Speaker shrugged. “That’s the best we can do, but let’s avoid going too far from here.”
So they searched. Going from tunnel to tunnel, looking closely. It was eventually Good Will who found something.
It was thanks to her small size. She saw on the wall, just at her eye level, the same ram skull symbol engraved.
“Hey! Ah think Ah found something!” she said before she put her hoof on the symbole. To her surprise, the symbol sunk into the wall, and the next instant, the part of the wall at its left sunk into the ground, revealing stairs going down.
“Woah, a secret passage,” Dark Vision said.
“Impressive! I’m sure it wasn’t here when Manehattan was built,” Rich Past said.
“Good job, pipsqueak,” Soul Speaker said, making Good Will beam.
They descended the stairs which descended into a spiral. After a minute, they arrived at the bottom and their jaws dropped upon seeing what was now before them.
A pyramid.
“The… The temple was rebuilt,” Rich Past said, having difficulty believing what she was seeing. “And judging by the plants creeping over it, it was rebuilt a long time ago.”
“Welp, let’s enter it,” Soul Speaker said.
So the group entered the temple, taking right away a staircase that led to the top floor where they entered a large room with the skull symbol glowing in the center. Around it were black candles, all used, and there were also various symbols, like a ritual. More symbols were on the walls.
“That’s Logarat writing. Give me some time to translate it,” Rich Past said.
As the minutes passed and she read the symbols, her expression turned to horror.
“T-that’s bad.”
“What do they say?” Good Will asked.
“It’s better if I wait for everyone to be together. They may find more info. Time to leave.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice. This place gives me the creep,” Soul Speaker said when, suddenly, his hoof sunk into the ground, followed by a click. He immediately understood. “Oh… Shoot…”
The floor opened under him, Dark Vision, and Good Will. Dark Vision flew and was able to catch Soul Speaker, but not Good Will.
“Good Will!” he yelled before the floor closed.
Good Will dropped into a hallway, before a slope. Right away, a trapdoor opened above the slope, and out of it came a giant spherical boulder. Good Will immediately began to run, only for arrows to come out of the walls. She dodged them with difficulty, but then, hole appeared in the floor which she also had to avoid. Finally, spikes came out of the ground, forcing her to stop and wait for them to retract. Eventually, she reached a big gap, and she had to use the Spectrovacuum to suck a liana to her before using it to reach the other side as the boulder fell.
She landed and took her breath before she reached the exit which was just beside the staircase leading to the top of the temple. The exit closed behind her, and here she found the others.
“Good Will! Are you alright?” Dark Vision immediately asked, looking over her to see if she was hurt.
“Ah’m alright. Avoided a big boulder, arrows, holes, spikes, and Ah didn’t get hit.”
Dark Vision breathed in relief.
“Sorry kid,” Soul Speaker said.
“Don’t worry, it’s not yer fault,” the filly reassured. “Let’s get out of here.”
They gathered with the other group in the headquarters where they found out that the other group found the same thing, an underground temple with what looked like a ritual, right under the basement of the library.
There, Rich Past and her friend, a red pegasus stallion with a yellow and red mane and a cloud of dust for a Cutie Mark named Dust Digger, revealed what the symbols they read meant.
The Logarat’s god was named Zegor the Destructor, and whoever rebuilt these temples were intending to bring him to Equestria. For that, they needed to do three rituals in a certain order, one in each temple, once a certain group of stars reached the right position. Already, two rituals were done.
“The third temple is right under the city hall. We must tell the mayor,” Gray Matter said.
“Yes!”
The Parahunters left the headquarters and went to the city hall. There, they found the mayor of Manehattan, a blue unicorn mare with a gray mane and a golden key for a Cutie Mark. She was known as Mayor Gray Mane.
“What do you want?” she asked once they were led into her office.
“Madam, we have very bad news. We have uncovered a conspiracy that has the goal to bring into our world an ancient and terrible god. We need to enter the basement of the city hall to find a temple under it and stop a ritual that is or will be taking place there.”
“The future of Equestria depends on it,” Gray Matter said.
The mayor stared at them. “I see… Then, I guess that I have to act.”
Suddenly, several ponies entered the office. Among them, the Parahunters recognized many figures of Manehattan, including the leader of the guards of the city, the CEO of a millionaire company, or even one of the most famous stylists.
The Parahunters looked around as they were surrounded.
“Oh… Let me guess, you are the guys doing the ritual,” Soul Speaker deadpanned.
Mayor Gray Mane laughed. “You are right. So, as you can guess, I can’t let you continue what you are doing. Guys, arrest them for assault on the mayor.”
The ponies immediately restrained the Parahunters who struggled to escape.
“You won’t get away with it!” Dark Vision shouted.
“I would like to see you find a way to stop us before we finish the ritual tonight. Goodbye.”
Madam Ruler, we are bringing to you a lost filly,” a guard said once they entered Madam Ruler’s office in Madam Ruler’s Orphanage.
Two guards were present, and between them was Good Will, looking very scared.
“No… Everything but here… Please…” she pleaded to the guards.
Madam Ruler rose from her chair, looking very happy. “Oh! Good Will! They finally found you! I was very worried after I found out you weren’t here anymore!”
Madam Ruler was a pink earth pony with a red mane and a ruler for a Cutie Mark. She was overweight, and she had a belt with the orphanage’s keys.
Good Will glared at her, not saying a word.
“You can leave her to me, boys. I will take care of her.”
“Very well, madam,” the same guard who talked earlier said before they both left the office.
The more they heard the guards walk away, the more Madam Ruler’s smile turned sinister, making Good Will gulp loudly.
Good Will was thrown into a very small room, barely one meter by one meter with a bowl of water being the only object present in a corner.
“As a welcome back gift, you will spend one week here with no food for having dared to escape. After that, I will present you back with my ruler. It really missed you.”
Good Will got up and glared at the mare, making her glare back.
“You dare look at me this way?” She took out a ruler from her mane. “Seems like I will present this ruler to you earlier than planned. Seems like you need to relearn to respect me.”
She advanced into the room.
Good Will continued to glare at her, then smirked. “No. Fatty.”
Madam Ruler gasped. Suddenly, Good Will grabbed the bowl of water and threw it at her. As the mare was splashed with water and hit on the head by the bowl, Good Will immediately ran beside her and snatched the keys before she placed herself behind Madam Ruler and bucked at her butt, making her fall on the floor in the room. Good Will then closed the door and used the right key to lock it.
“After living in the streets and fighting ghosts, ya’re nothing, fatty!”
“Let me out! I order you to let me out! Once I’m out, I swear that I will make you regret it!” Madam Ruler shouted as she hit the door to try to open it.
Good Will decided to not wait to see if she could eventually open it, and she ran into the hallways of the orphanage. Knowing it by heart, she knew where the exit was, and she had no problem escaping the orphanage for the second time.
Good Will didn’t hesitate. She had to break the Parahunters out of prison. She thankfully heard that they will be kept in the guard station until they could get a trial before they will be sent to a prison outside of Manehattan. She will have to wait tonight where, hopefully, there will be less guards. Thankfully, it was getting late already.
Meanwhile, she returned to the Parahunter HQ.
“Welcome back, Good Will. Where are the others?” Sunny Feather asked upon seeing her.
“In jail. Ah must break them out and stop the mayor.”
“Say what?!”
But Good Will didn’t say more as she passed her desk and went to the basement. On the way, she was joined by Misty who flew around her, wanting to play.
“Sorry Misty, no time ta play. Yer daddys are in danger and Ah must save them.”
Misty didn’t understand much, but she understood one word. “Dada?”
“Yes. Dada. Danger. Bad guys. Save them.”
“Dada.” Misty saw how serious and grave Good Will was, so she got a worried expression as she followed the filly who entered the workshop. She went to the horseshoe and grabbed it. It was still too big for her, but she could simply hold it before she decided to give it to Misty.
“Keep it.”
Misty took it, not sure what to do with it.
“See the button? Press it. Like ya did earlier with the cannon.”
Good Will showed the button, and immediately, Misty pressed it, activating the horseshoe. But then, she pressed the button a second time, deactivating it, only to press again, reactivating it. She repeatedly pressed the button, activating and deactivating the horseshoe while she laughed.
Good Will sighed.
Finally, it was night, close to midnight. Good Will, followed by Misty holding the horseshoe, returned to the guard station. The streets still had ponies that got scared by the ghost’s presence, but the filly didn’t mind them.
When they reached the station, Good Will went to a window far enough from the entrance, where she was sure it wouldn’t be guarded.
“Can ya open the window?” she whispered to Misty who, of course, didn’t understand. Seeing that, Good Will tapped the window.
Misty passed the window, dropping the horseshoe which Good Will quickly caught. Then, the window was opened from the inside, allowing her to enter.
They were now in a room that was thankfully empty. Good Will gave the horseshoe back to Misty.
Good Will silently opened the door and peered into the hallway, seeing no guard. So she entered the hallway, followed again by Misty, and carefully walked, regularly looking behind her.
She heard them before she saw them, around a corner, three guards were approaching, discussing. Good Will immediately hid behind a planted pot while Misty turned invisible. The horseshoe wasn’t invisible however, so Good Will quickly grabbed it to hide it with her.
The three guards passed beside her, thankfully not spotting her. Good Will quickly, but silently, walked away.
Suddenly, she heard a guard yell, “Ghosts have appeared around the city hall and are attacking the citizens! We must go!”
Countless hoofteps coming from all over the buildings then sounded, and Good Will and Misty quickly hid inside an empty room.
As she waited for the guards to leave, Good Will cursed.
The mayor did the third ritual, certainly at midnight.
Zegor was coming.
Once the hoofsteps disappeared, she left the room and ran until she found the stairs to the basement where she guessed the jails were. She descended them, finding out that she was right. However, to her surprise, there was still a guard guarding them, and he immediately spotted her.
“What are you doing here, little one?”
“Good Will?” Dark Vision asked from one of the cells.
The four Parahunters went to the bars and looked, seeing that it was her, indeed. They couldn’t believe that she was here.
The guard approached her.
“You aren’t allowed here.”
“Sorry, mister, but Ah must save mah friends, and Equestria.”
Suddenly, the guard was hit on the head by the horseshoe activated, shocking him and knocking him out right away. Misty then turned visible, babbling happily.
“Good job Misty!”
The ghost giggled, applauding.
Good Will quickly took the keys from the guard and opened the doors of the cells, freeing the Parahunters who congratulated the fillies, Dark Vision patting Good Will on the head.
“I didn’t expect my invention to be used on a guard,” Gray Matter said. “A living guard.”
“Circumstances asked for it,” Soul Speaker said.
“We must hurry up guys,” Good Will said. “The mayor and her cronies did the third ritual.”
At that, everypony looked grave.
“What do we do then? Zegor is coming,” Summer Road asked.
“We do what we do best, my friend,” Soul Speaker said. “Kicking ghost butts.”
“But first, we must recover the Spectrovacuums,” Gray Matter said.
“Hopefully, they are still in the Spectromobile, and hopefully again, they left it before the city hall,” Dark Vision said.
Thankfully, the station wasn’t far from the city hall, so it only took a few minutes to go there where they found hundreds of ghosts roaming the streets and attacking the ponies. The guards were trying to help, but they weren’t very effective. To make matters worse, buildings were burning.
The Parahunters found the Spectromobile and ran for it, avoiding the ghosts. Inside the vehicle, they found the Spectrovacuums and equipped them right away.
“Back in action!” Soul Speaker exclaimed.
“Again, we will have to disperse to deal with all of them, but try to not go too far from each others,” Gray Matter said.
The Parahunters all nodded, and they ran in different directions, beginning to capture ghosts.
Thankfully, Gray Matter had planned for such a situation and gave the Spectrovacuums the possibility to augment power while giving them the risk of overheating. Thanks to that, they were able to deal with the huge number of ghosts.
New ghosts were among them, beside the now usual blue ones. Large rectangular red ones, tall yellow ones that liked to throw stuff, and sneaky purple ones.
Good Will activated the overheat mode and was able to capture dozens of ghosts before she was forced to return to normal mode before the Spectrovacuum could explode on her back.
The red ghosts revealed that they couldn’t be captured from the front, so Good Will slammed a purple one on the closest red one to immobilize it and be able to go behind it to capture it. She then used the red ghost’s large body like a hammer on the other ghosts, weakening a lot of them that she then just had to collect.
A last red ghost remained, but she decided to deal with the yellow ones first to stop them from throwing objects at her, which was very annoying and painful. It wasn’t long before all of them were captured, using debris and large objects as cover. When she was capturing the last one, she slammed it on the last red ghost to immobilize it, allowing her to capture it and use it like the previous red one as a hammer on the other ghosts. Before long, they were all captured.
Good Will thus cleared her portion of the streets, but many other ghosts were everywhere else.
Suddenly, wind picked up ash and gathered it into a large cloud beside the city hall that grew, and grew, and grew, until it was as big as a building. The cloud then changed shape, becoming… a ram. Then, fire began to come out of its mouth and its eyes
The ram roared.
The Parahunters gathered.
“I think this is Zegor,” Soul Speaker said.
“How will we deal with him?” Summer Road asked.
“He’s so huge!” Good Will shouted.
“We won’t let you bother the Great Zegor!” a familiar mare voice said.
The next instant, Mayor Gray Mane, now a ghost, appeared along with her cronies, now ghosts too.
“You will have to pass by us before! But I dare you to try! The Great Zegor gave us great powers to thank us for bringing him to our world!”
“It still won’t stop us from trying,” Soul Speaker said. “You may be powerful ghosts, but you are still ghosts, and ghosts are our specialty.”
“After over one thousand years of waiting, our ancestors will finally have their revenge! Die!”
Gray Mane then sent purple lightning bolts that the Parahunters avoided by scattering.
A terrible battle began, but Good Will remained out of it. Instead, she looked at Zegor who was beginning to destroy the city.
By the time the Parahunters deal with the mayor and the others, there won’t be a city left to save.
But Good Will had an idea.
She immediately ran away, eventually followed by Misty who looked at her curiously.
“Ah know what ta do ta stop Zegor! Ah must return ta the HQ!”
Meanwhile, the Parahunters continued their battle against Gray Mane who was now raining lightning from the sky while the others fired levitated debris or fired all kinds of projectiles. The Parahunters had difficulty avoiding all that, but Dark Vision eventually managed to approach one of the cronies and to trap him. It didn’t stop him from attacking however as he still caused spikes to sprout out of the ground, trying to skewer the pegasus as he was dragged around.
Dark Vision suddenly found himself levitated and thrown away by Gray Mane, making him release the ghost. Meanwhile, Soul Speaker managed to trap another one after getting past the chunks of road levitating around her. This time, he was joined by Summer Road, allowing them to capture the ghost.
Gray Mane prepared a ball of energy only for Gray Matter to throw with his Spectrovacuum a large debris at her. The debris went through her, but it still disturbed her, making her miss her aim, the ball instead destroying a wall. Gray Mane growled at him and unleashed lightning at him, making him yell in pain. Dark Vision quickly stopped her by trapping a ghost and slamming him on her.
Good Will entered the HQ and yelled, “Sunny! Ah’ll need yer help!”
“What is going on? I heard a roar!”
“Zegor is out there destroying the city! We must stop him! Help me bring the shrinking cannon out!”
“The shrinking cannon?”
“No time ta explain!”
Before long, the cannon was outside.
“Use it ta make me grow!”
“What?”
“Press this button, then this button, then this button.”
“Uh… Ok.”
Finally, Good Will placed herself before the cannon, far enough. Sunny Feather pressed the buttons as told, and the cannon fired at the filly who suddenly grew until she was about Zegor’s size.
Sunny looked in awe.
“Thank ya Sunny. Now, Ah must go. Ah have a god ta capture.”
Finally, Good Will walked away, the city shaking with each of her steps, not minding the panicking ponies at her hooves, but still careful to not walk on them.
Before long, she found Zegor.
Immediately upon spotting her, Zegor opened his mouth and gathered a huge quantity of energy into a ball. He fired, and Good Will ducked to avoid it before she ran toward him and punched him, sending some of the ash forming him in the air while the god was sent into a building that crumbled on him.
Zegor got up, the ash returning in his body, and he punched Good Will in return, and despite the filly parrying, she was sent sliding several meters back down the street. Zegor then used the ash forming his body to create small ghost-like ash golems that went after Good Will, but she easily sucked them up with the Spectrovacuum. However, she couldn't suck up the ash directly from Zegor's body.
Understanding what she had to do, she ran back to Zegor and punched him, but Zegor dodged and punched her in return. She lowered her head to avoid him and punched Zegor in the gut before turning around and bucking his head, expelling a lot of ash from his body. She immediately sucked it up with the Spectrovacuum. Zegor sent several energy balls in return, and Good Will ran down a different street to avoid them, hiding behind the buildings. Zegor followed her as a torrent of ash, only to be bucked again when it entered the same street as Good Will. As the ram of ash reformed, she then grabbed his head by the horns, lifted him, and violently slammed him on the street, making the city shake and expelling a lot of ash from Zegor's body that she immediately sucked up. Zegor, however, fired an energy ball at her, and she was hit in the chest, sending her flying far down the street.
She quickly got up, and by reflex, she used the handle of her Spectrovacuum as a bat, successfully sending a second energy ball back at Zegor. The god clearly hadn't expected it, and the ball hit his head, destroying a part of it. Good Will quickly approached it to suck up the expelled ash before it could return to his body, which was now full of holes as it was losing its consistency, more fire coming out of the holes.
As she finished sucking up the ash, she was punched in the face. She retaliated by grabbing the leg that punched her before pulling, forcing the ram closer to her. She then punched him in the gut one, two, three times before she was slapped by a tentacle of ash forming from Zegor's body. She then gave an uppercut that sent the ram back a few steps, took off her Spectrovacuum, and slammed it on his head. She quickly put the Spectrovacuum back before sucking up the ash, only for more tentacles of ash to form and to wrap around her legs. She was then lifted and violently slammed against a building. Despite that, she grabbed one of the tentacles and spun, slamming the god into another building. This sectioned the tentacle from the main body, causing Zegor to lose a lot of ash that Good Will sucked up. As Zegor recovered, she then tackled him, and after rolling together a little, she grabbed his tail and used the momentum of the roll to violently slam him on the street. His body of ash exploded into a cloud, and she sucked everything with her Spectrovacuum.
But Zegor wasn't defeated yet. It turned out that the ash was only a shell hiding his real form: a ghostly mass of fire with a face without any real shape.
The being of fire sent flames to burn Good Will, but she sucked them up, and she also began to suck him up, his immaterial form making him vulnerable to the Spectrovacuum. Zegor then charged a lot of energy for a huge attack in hope of avoiding being captured, and he fired a powerful beam of destruction, only for Good Will to slam him, causing his beam to go haywire without even hitting her. However, it caused a lot of destruction to the buildings around them before it stopped. Good Will then continued to slam Zegor again and again until he was captured.
Good Will breathed heavily, not believing that she won. She sat down, flinching because of her injuries. But then, she grinned.
She really captured a god!
Meanwhile, Mayor Gray Mane saw Good Will capture Zegor and yelled in despair.
“Noooo!!! How could Zegor lose to a filly?! That’s impossible!!!”
“That’s our pipsqueak!” Soul Speaker exclaimed.
“Not so pipsqueak right now,” Summer Road said.
“But the city is in really bad shape,” Gray Matter said.
“Look! The ghosts are leaving!” Dark Vision shouted.
As he said, the remaining ghosts, beside Gray Mane and what remained of her minions, flew away and dispersed into the sky.
“Aw man… More work for us in the future,” Summer Road said.
“Why do you sound so down? That’s great! To us the money!” Soul Speaker said.
“But first, we must finish with her,” Gray Matter said, pointing at Gray Mane.
Only Gray Mane and two of her cronies remained, all of them weakened. The Parahunters, however, were breathing hard.
“You will not get away with this!”
“Oh, but we will,” Soul Speaker said before he activated his Spectrovacuum, trapping the three ghosts. The three others joined him.
Between the four of them, the two minions were quickly captured, but Gray Maner struggled hard, sending everything she had to escape. Soul Speaker was hit by lightning, but he resisted and continued to suck up.
After a long minute, Gray Mane was finally captured, entering Dark Vision’s Spectrovacuum.
Immediately, the four of them sat down, absolutely spent.
“It’s over,” Dark Vision said.
“Hehe. We stopped a millennium old conspiracy to destroy Equestria. Go, team,” Soul Speaker said.
“I can’t believe we did it,” Summer Road said. “If I had known this would happen, I would have asked for a raise.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure we will receive a nice sum for saving Equestria,” Soul Speaker said.
Suddenly, the earth shook, heralding the arrival of giant Good Will who looked down at them in worry.
“Are ya alright?” she asked.
“We should be the ones asking you that. We aren’t the ones who fought a god,” Gray Matter said.
“Tired. Hurt. Need to sleep right now. But Ah’m ok.”
“Same for us, pipsqueak,” Soul Speaker said. “Same for us.”
Misty suddenly arrived and flew among them, babbling happily. When she flew around Good Will, she cooed upon seeing something on her flank.
“What is it, Misty?” Good Will asked before she looked at her flank, and she gasped.
She now had her Cutie Mark.
It was the exact same symbol as the Parahunters, a white ghost surrounded by a red circle with a red bar crossing it.
“Ah got mah Cutie Mark! Oh mah gosh! And it’s in ghost hunting!”
She began to bounce in joy, making the earth shake. The stallions stumbled and Gray Matter even fell over because of that.
“Woah, calm down Good Will!” Dark Vision said.
Good Will stopped, sheepish. “Oops, sorry.”
“Eh. As we thought, it really is your talent,” Summer Road said. “We are happy for you.”
“Thanks!”
“Now, we should shrink you,” Gray Matter said.
“And celebrate our victory and you getting your Cutie Mark!” Soul Speaker exclaimed.
Everypony agreed.
And so, the Parahunters returned to their HQ and celebrated before they got a well-earned rest.
They needed it, because the situation in Manehattan was very chaotic for the following days. They had to explain everything that happened, the mayor and others had to be replaced, buildings had to be rebuilt, and countless ghosts who escaped had to be captured all over Equestria and beyond.
Needless to say, the Parahunters became very busy, and Good Will was very happy. She loved this job!
Tale 6: What If: The Ultimate Life-Form's Ascension
The battle against Chaos Elfilis continued as the heroes, joined by Void, fought with everything they had to defeat the Ultimate Life-form and stop them from trying to make Popstar collide with Earth. They managed to weaken them enough that their Soul came out, a large orb with smaller blood red orbs orbiting it.
Void, chasing the Soul like everyone else, sent fire at it. He hesitated using his Soul Form, his full power fearing the collateral damage that he would cause, but Elfilis was so powerful that he may have to do it. But he trusted that he and the others would manage to defeat them without him resorting to it.
Suddenly, Elfilis teleported right before Void and lost definition, becoming liquid. Eyes widening in horror, Void wasn’t able to stop himself before he flew right into it. He struggled to escape, but the liquid closed on him and spread all over his body. The others attacked to try to get him out, but failed.
“They absorbed Void…” Sweetie Void said, not believing what happened.
The red orbs merged with the Soul, enveloping it so it turned into a red liquid orb that dripped. Out of the liquid then came many purple eyes of various sizes with black, blue, and pink iris that had white pupils. These eyes moved all over it, sometimes sinking into their body and coming out elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in the vortex above them, they could see Popstar approaching again. Void’s clones that had been pushing the planets to keep them away from each other had disappeared.
However, the vortex became unstable. It was losing shape and shrinking, losing power. Popstar wasn’t approaching as rapidly as previously. That was one silver lining among all the bad stuff happening.
It seemed that absorbing Void was too much for Elfilis. They had difficulty fully processing this superior entity. It was like Void was still fighting inside them.
Sweetie Void wanted to save Void, but she didn’t know what to do. How to free someone absorbed by Elfilis? Leongar was saved, but it was only because Elfilis had wanted to use his body to return. The other animals they absorbed were still trapped inside them.
So there was only one thing the heroes could do.
“They are unstable! We must use the occasion to attack them!” Sweetie Void instructed.
Elfilis was currently immobile, not doing anything, so the heroes were able to unleash their best attacks to deal as much damage as possible in a minimum of time.
After several seconds of that, however, Elfilis suddenly sent a powerful shockwave that hit all the heroes and sent them crashing far while destroying the whole city, leaving behind a giant crater. The eyes then fired lasers that began to sweep around randomly. Some of the eyeballs entirely floated out of the body, moving around a bit before returning in it. The lasers were so powerful that they entirely traversed the planet, cutting it to pieces. Same with Popstar above.
And that was only the beginning as Elfilis became the center of a real storm of random attacks, unleashing winds going at hundreds of miles per hour, fire as hot as the sun, ice as cold as the absolute zero, while also sending the classic cutter blades, spikes, or explosive balls of energy (VERY powerful explosive balls of energy). Elfilis wasn’t trying to hit anything with them. They were just sent randomly, making them totally unpredictable, without forgetting that they were, like the vortex, unstable, so they tended to move in even more random directions, dissipate prematurely, or explode even when they weren’t supposed to. Thanks to that, the damages were limited to a dozen miles around them, without counting the lasers.
“The enemy has totally lost their mind!” Gilgamesh said upon seeing all that, in awe before such power.
Since he had been riding Sweetie Void, he crashed just beside her after they were expelled by the shockwave. They were now many miles away, but they could see the storm of attacks very well.
Sweetie Void glared at the storm, then flew up, readied her ten cannons, and fired an Ultimate Doom Laser, making sure that it won’t end up hitting anything. The laser engulfed Elfilis and caused a huge amount of damage, but Elfilis survived, still attacking.
Phantom also attacked, sending cubes at Elfilis from where she crashed. A few cubes managed to pass through the attacks and to hit Elfilis, sending them to another reality where a star, a real star, was dropped on them. Still, it wasn’t enough.
Galacta Knight sent sharp waves with his spear. Most were destroyed by Elfilis’ attacks, but one still managed to reach Elfilis and to slice them, but they immediately reformed.
Suddenly, Elfilis stopped attacking and glowed. Then, they shot up, going toward space under the vortex in the blink of an eye.
Drat… Space in this universe may not be like space like in the Dream Universe. She will have to ensure that Gilgamesh, who probably couldn’t survive in space, will be able to go there.
She let Gilgamesh climb on her, then chased Elfilis along with everyone else.
When they joined Elfilis, they saw that their body stabilized and took on a new appearance. They were still red, but now, they looked like a fusion between a Dark Matter and a bud, their spherical body being composed of six closed ‘petals’, each with a purple eye. From the three bottom eyes started white streaks, like tear trails.
It was bad, but there was one silver lining: Elfilis absorbed Positive Void, Void at his weakest. If it had been Neutral Void…
But still, there was no doubt that, now, Elfilis was…
The Ascended Void Elfilis
Suddenly, like a flower, Void Elfilis’ body opened, revealing inside it a black void surrounding a single giant eye. Actually, it looked like the void itself was the eye, and the ‘eye’ in the center was just the iris.
The next instant, the vortex stabilized, grew back to its normal size, and regained its power. But to the heroes’ horror, more vortexes opened, each bringing a new planet, some of which they recognized. The three Equus. New Halcandra. The Mushroom World. Mobius. Daiban. And others that must be the Pokémon World or Hyrule’s world.
Void Elfilis was about to make the main planets of the Alliance crash into each others. The vortexes were all around Earth.
Gilgamesh summarized it for everyone, even if he didn’t know what these planets were: “Crap.”
They had to destroy Elfilis NOW!
As Elfilis closed, Sweetie Void began to sing, powering up everyone, having to use power so her voice could reach the others despite them being in space.
“We must stand strong, We don’t have long To defeat this wrong, So listen to my song.”
They began to fly all over the planet, Elfilis leading them into a chase as they began to attack by firing lasers from their eyes.
Fearing touching one of the planets, Sweetie didn’t dare firing her Ultimate Doom Laser, so she used smaller attacks, starting by sending energy swords by dozens. On her back, Gilgamesh used magic, like always, not able to do anything else. Beside her, Kirby used the Ultra Morpho Sword to send sharp waves. Galacta Knight opened rifts to fire his space beams. Phantom, after using cubes to bring Void Elfilis into another reality, sent small stars.
And then there was Apple Death who, instead of attacking, flew toward the planet.
Whatever idea her friend had, Sweetie Void continued singing.
“While it looks bleak, We are not weak.”
Void Elfilis turned black, then their body collapsed into a powerful black hole that the heroes resisted by flying away.
“Must not fail, Must prevail, Not turn tail.”
Below them, the planet, which had been cut to pieces, began to reform. Three holes then opened in the crust, two forming eyes and one forming a mouth.
Apple Death, thanks to Sweetie Void’s boost, took possession of the whole planet.
Meanwhile, the black hole disappeared, and Elfilis teleported around a bit before they opened large vortexes out of which came hundreds of giant meteors. The heroes either avoided them or destroyed them.
But suddenly, Elfilis opened their body and began sucking up everything into their void.
“We must trust. Our worlds will not turn to dust.”
The planet fired homing beams from the eyes, causing huge damage to Elfilis who stopped sucking up before they closed.
“We have lots of friends we must defend so it’s not their end.”
Elfilis’ body opened again, expelling everything they sucked up, but much deadlier as they were much faster. They also expelled a strong force that pushed against the heroes, slowing them down.
All around them, debris from the planets were raining.
“Together we stand tall Fighting to not fall For the good of all.”
Sweetie Void created her own black hole that sucked up the meteors. Then, she expelled all of it as an even more giant meteor that destroyed everything in its path until hitting Elfilis’ iris in the center of their void, which hurt them a lot judging by the screech they let out.
“This red demon ascending Will not stop us from having our happy ending.”
Void Elfilis closed and sent dozens of cutter blades while materializing two Ultra Swords. With them, they began to slice space, copying Galacta Knight by sending their own space beams, even more powerful.
“Can’t stop. Push on, on.”
Void Elfilis materialized four Master Crowns in a circle and charged a beam. The heroes couldn’t avoid it, the Mushroom World was behind them. No choice, Sweetie readied her Ultimate Doom Laser to counter it. The two beams clashed and created a huge explosion that sent everyone far away. They quickly recovered however and resumed chasing Elfilis.
“Fight, fight, so we can see the dawn.”
The planets were getting closer. They had to hurry up.
Suddenly, to Sweetie’s shock, Void Elfilis began to sing.
I am the light That will scorch the worlds and turn to ash My father’s legacy
Sweetie’s jaw dropped as she saw Void Elfilis powering themself.
“Hey! Thief!” she yelled. However, she quickly got over it and resumed singing to not lose the buff.
“While it looks bleak, We are not weak.”
You are insects You stand no chance
The planet opened its mouth and spat hundreds of beams that homed in on Elfilis. Meanwhile, Galacta Knight decided to try to seal them and sent many Heart Spears that they easily pushed back with a shockwave. Sweetie Void made everyone teleport so they didn’t get hit by it.
“Must not fail, Must prevail, Not turn tail.”
You will fail, Be destroyed, Bow to God.
Void Elfilis created three copies of themself who all enveloped themselves in blue fire before they charged at the heroes, all the while sending fireballs randomly from all over their bodies. Phantom materialized a giant baseball bat made of the strongest heat-resistant metal and used it to send one of the copies away. The bat still melted after touching the copy. Gilgamesh didn’t even bother using his ice magic.
“We must trust. Our worlds will not turn to dust.”
It will end. All of life will disappear.
The four Elfilis stopped charging and gathered back, forming a line, before they fired homing beams from their eyes. Dodging all of them was impossible, and the heroes all got hit at least once. Sweetie Void tried to use her mirrors, but the beams were too powerful and destroyed them without problem.
The four Elfilis then merged back into one and materialized four Master Crowns, to Sweetie’s horror.
With Elfilis boosting themself, their beam will be too powerful even for her Ultimate Doom Laser.
Also, the planets were very close to the vortexes. They will traverse them anytime now. More and more pieces of them were raining everywhere.
“We have lots of friends we must defend so it’s not their end.”
War is all they know So war I bring Until nothing’s left.
Sweetie Void still readied her beam, and the two fired. However, as expected, Elfilis’ beam overpowered Sweetie Void’s.
Then came Elfilin who placed himself before Sweetie Void, taking her energy and unleashing it as the beam, taking it over while giving his own energy, turning the beam more powerful. The beams were now equal in power, but then, Elfilis opened, and their beam gained even more power. Elfilin looked at the others and wordlessly told them to hurry up!
They understood. They all approached and placed a hand near Elfilin, giving him energy, allowing his beam to get more powerful. Seeing what was happening, Apple Death left the planet and came to give her own energy. The two beams were now equal again.
“Together we stand tall Fighting to not fall For the good of all.”
Your friendship is useless. It only brings pain. You are best alone.
Sweetie Void glared at Elfilis. Then, Celestia came, bringing with her everyone who participated in this adventure. They immediately understood what was going on and began to give their energy to Elfilin who roared as his beam gained the upper hand.
Sweetie Void grinned.
“We are not perfect at all But we believe in All for One and One for All!”
Elfilis couldn’t sing anymore as fear filled them.
Elfilin’s beam overpowered Elfilis’ beam and continued into their opened body until reaching the iris where it exploded.
Their body then began to disintegrate into light particles. Before long, a last particle of light floated toward Elfilin who absorbed it.
Finally, the vortexes closed, just in time.
Sweetie Void breathed in relief. It was over. The Alliance was saved.
But at what price… They lost a God. A dear friend. A father. And the planets certainly received huge damage from the force of the vortexes and any straight projectiles, even if the heroes had been careful.